How the deadly Marshall Fire sparked a political transformation in Colorado

After the fire destroyed his town in 2021, a state rep took on insurance companies, mortgage lenders, and landlords—and beat them all.

As the one-year anniversary of the 2021 Marshall Fire approached, Kyle Brown was serving as a city councilman in Louisville, Colorado, a suburb of Boulder that had been devastated by the blaze. Brown’s own home had escaped damage, but hundreds of his neighbors had lost everything to the costliest and deadliest fire in the state’s history, which caused more than $2 billion in damages and destroyed more than a thousand structures.