Does Firestone, CO need an earthquake retrofit?

Under the seismic model IBC and ASCE 7 use for new construction, Firestone is Category B. Low seismic hazard. Code requires basic seismic detailing (bracing, connections) but no special structural system restrictions. That puts Firestone in the 55th percentile nationally for seismic hazard - higher than 55% of the 4,875 US cities USGS was checked against here.

Where Firestone sits in Colorado

The raw figures: peak ground acceleration 0.097g, short-period spectral response 0.182g, 1-second spectral response 0.055g. Among 79 Colorado cities in this dataset, Firestone ranks 58 for seismic hazard, the 27th percentile within the state. About 19,396 people live in Firestone, Colorado.

Bracing and bolting: the actual cost

Outside California, no state-level retrofit grant equivalent to Brace + Bolt could be found for Colorado. A typical retrofit still runs $5,000-$10,000 nationally, about $7,000 for a common single-family job.

What this means for insurance

Outside California, earthquake coverage is typically sold as an endorsement added to a standard homeowners policy, not a separate product - worth asking about directly when getting a home-insurance quote for a Firestone address.

More on how this number was built

The methodology guide covers exactly how USGS's public design-maps API produced Firestone's numbers. The guide to what a Seismic Design Category actually means covers why a category is never a substitute for an engineer's assessment of one specific house.