TL;DR: Denver's Office of Emergency Management has published an updated Emergency Evacuation Plan within its broader Emergency Management Plan, built around 18 identified threats and coordinated from a bunker emergency operations center beneath the City and County Building.

Denver finalizes evacuation plan around 18 threats

Denver has completed a revision of its citywide emergency framework, placing a new evacuation document inside the larger municipal emergency structure after multiple editing rounds. According to CBS Colorado, the Office of Emergency Management recently published its Emergency Evacuation Plan as part of its overall Emergency Management Plan, and the package contains a refreshed inventory of 18 potential dangers for people in the city. Reporter Chierstin Roth described the work on September 22, 2026, at 10:11 PM MDT, in a report focused on how officials intend to direct staffing, messaging and movement during a worst-case incident.

The central facility for that work sits below the City and County Building. According to CBS Colorado, a former nuclear shelter under that building now serves as Denver's emergency operations center, arranged to accommodate municipal leaders when a severe event requires centralized direction. The communications manager for the Office of Emergency Management, Loa Esquilin-Garcia, walked through the room's purpose during the station's visit.

What happens inside the underground operations center

The room is organized into functional positions rather than department seating. According to CBS Colorado, staff there handle logistics, planning, operations and communications, alongside finance and liaison duties. Esquilin-Garcia explained the layout in these terms: “Here we do logistics, planning, operations, and communications, along with finance and liaison.”

That arrangement lets city representatives work beside partner personnel in one location. According to CBS Colorado, city partner agencies contributed to drafting the updated documents, with participation from some state agencies as well. Esquilin-Garcia described the drafting input this way: “We bring partner agencies from the city; some are state agencies that help us inform the writing of this plan.”

The Denver Office of Emergency Management lists its public office at 101 W. Colfax Ave. in Denver, with a public website at denvergov.org/oem, according to place-directory information for the agency. The same directory lists phone contact at +17208657600 and email contact at [email protected]. Those contact points are separate from the underground coordination space, which is intended for officials rather than public walk-in assistance.

Evacuation plan sits inside larger emergency plan

The newly released evacuation component does not stand alone. According to CBS Colorado, it was published inside the overall Emergency Management Plan after several rounds of revisions. The broader plan incorporates the updated set of 18 potential threats to individuals in the city.

The report did not publish the full roster of 18 hazards. What it emphasized was breadth: officials said coverage is intended to address nearly any category of emergency the city could face. The department's message, as conveyed by Esquilin-Garcia, was that municipal services must be positioned to address every hazard type included in the review.

Practice is now the stated focus. According to CBS Colorado, with the document described as finalized, officials identified rehearsal and preparedness work as the following phase. That includes confirming how departments notify residents and designate destinations during a developing event.

Why wildfire and cyberattack coverage is new

For the first time, the planning effort explicitly evaluates wildfire and cyberattack scenarios, according to CBS Colorado. Wildfire consideration follows an exceptionally dry period in Colorado, while cyberattack inclusion reflects concern about disruption to services and systems.

Dryness data reported in mid-September helps explain the wildfire emphasis. According to the Denver Gazette, 88.2 percent of Colorado was experiencing some level of drought in data collected September 15, with another 5.6 percent in abnormal dryness. The newspaper reported that the share at drought stage four, the most severe of four stages, reached 15.21 percent, up from 13.46 percent the prior week and 11.97 percent the week before that. The affected area extended without interruption from the southern border into multiple northern Colorado counties.

County-level detail underscored the persistence. According to the Denver Gazette, Eagle, Pitkin and Lake counties had their entire local areas at drought stage four, and much of the impacted ground had remained at that tier for most of the summer. The publication also noted a small week-over-week improvement in the statewide Drought Severity and Coverage Index score, to 314 from 317. It reported that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration anticipated a likelihood of wetter-than-normal conditions in Colorado from at least October through December.

Heat and precipitation records provide additional background. According to VailDaily.com, Colorado State Climatologist Russ Schumacher told the September 22 Colorado Water Conditions Monitoring Committee meeting that the 2026 water year had produced numerous seasonal and monthly heat records. The water year began October 1, 2025, and delivered the warmest December, February, March and August statewide, along with the warmest winter, spring and summer, Schumacher said. The Western Slope matched almost the same set, except December and February ranked second and third hottest respectively.

Through the end of August, statewide temperatures stood 5.6 degrees warmer than the late-20th-century average, with the prior record held by the 1934 water year, according to VailDaily.com. By August 31, average statewide temperatures for the 11-month span were 2 degrees higher than the equivalent period in 1934. Statewide temperatures through September 21 were averaging 4-6 degrees warmer than normal, putting September on course for the warmest on record, while western Colorado was 2-4 degrees warmer than normal for the month.

Precipitation shortfalls accompanied the warmth. According to VailDaily.com, the first 11 months of water year 2026 ranked as the sixth driest in 131 years statewide. Portions of northern Pitkin County, eastern Eagle County, western Summit County and central Weld County recorded their driest October 1 through August 31 period on record. The same report noted statewide snowpack at 22 percent of normal and cited a Colorado School of Mines study finding that human-caused warming made the 2026 snow drought four times more likely statewide and about 14 times more likely in the upper Colorado River basin.

Alerting and routing are central to next steps

Notification and movement decisions form a large share of the evacuation document. According to CBS Colorado, officials highlighted questions of how to warn residents and where to direct them. Esquilin-Garcia framed that portion as a major element of the plan, saying teams must resolve methods for warning the public and identifying destinations.

That work involves coordination beyond City Hall. Because city and state contributors helped shape the language, according to CBS Colorado, the resulting procedures are meant to align municipal departments with outside partners that would support messaging, transportation or sheltering. The department's stated objective is to keep services positioned for each hazard category rather than building isolated responses.

Training and exercises are the mechanism for testing those procedures. According to CBS Colorado, completion of the written plan leads into drills intended to confirm that participants understand roles. Hiring activity around emergency training in Denver points to the same emphasis on rehearsal: a City and County of Denver posting dated September 17, 2026, sought an Emergency Management Training and Exercise Design Supervisor for Denver International Airport to oversee preparedness instruction, exercise scheduling and compliance with Federal Aviation Administration Part 139 requirements. The airport role also involved updates to airport emergency, continuity and preparedness documents and support during Emergency Operations Center activations.

Community outreach has run in parallel. Denver Emergency Management said it welcomed City and County of Denver government employees into its Emergency Operations Center for tours, describing emergency coordination as a team effort that depends on staff across the municipality, according to a September 23, 2026, summary of the agency's announcement. In a separate mid-September community notice, the office said it would support a “Know Your Hazards” class and bucket giveaway at the Denver Parks and Recreation Globeville Rec Center.

What Denver households are asked to mirror

City planners paired the institutional update with a household message. According to CBS Colorado, officials stressed personal responsibility alongside government preparation, urging residents to maintain their own arrangements rather than relying solely on public resources.

The guidance uses three short actions: maintain a plan, assemble a kit and remain informed. According to CBS Colorado, Esquilin-Garcia noted the parallel between household and municipal steps, saying the city likewise maintains a plan, rehearses it, stays informed and reviews documents and available resources for residents. The precise household quote used in the broadcast was: “Have a plan, build a kit, stay informed.”

The city also points residents toward emergency alerts. According to CBS Colorado, Denver residents can enroll to receive official notifications when an emergency affects the city. The report linked enrollment to the city's emergency-information system, though it did not list enrollment totals or delivery methods in the published text.

The overall Emergency Management Plan, including the evacuation section, is posted through the city's emergency-plans portal, according to CBS Colorado. That portal is the reference point for residents who want to review the municipal documents that underpin alert wording and movement instructions described in the update.

Sources referenced