Ladris presented on innovation in advanced evacuation planning at the Colorado Emergency Management Conference, held February 10–12, 2026 in Loveland, Colorado. Hosted by the Colorado Emergency Management Association (CEMA), the conference is the state’s premier annual gathering for emergency management professionals across public safety, public health, and government.
The session focused on how data-driven simulation is reshaping evacuation planning for wind-driven wildfires — the fast-moving, ember-fueled fires that can force entire subdivisions to move with far less warning than slower, fuel-driven fires allow. Ladris walked through how modern evacuation modeling answers the two questions every incident commander faces: how long before the hazard reaches a community, and how long it takes to get everyone out.
Drawing on advanced evacuation planning work underway in Colorado’s Pikes Peak region, the presentation showed how running large numbers of evacuation simulations lets agencies challenge their assumptions, compare traffic-management strategies, and build response tactics grounded in evidence rather than instinct — from staging and contraflow to the timing of alerts and warnings.
Every community deserves to know how long an evacuation will actually take long before the day it matters. Simulation turns that from a guess into a plan.
Leo Zlimen — Chief Executive Officer, LadrisLadris thanks CEMA and its partners for the opportunity to share this work with Colorado’s emergency management community. For more about the conference, visit the Colorado Emergency Management Association.