Larimer wins $9.8M grant for wildfire defense

FORT COLLINS — Larimer County has been awarded a five-year, $9.856 million grant for the “Protecting the Gateway to the Rockies” wildfire defense project.

The award, provided through the Community Wildfire Defense Grant program from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, will fund project activities to improve wildfire defense in Estes Park and the forested landscape corridor along Big Thompson Canyon.

“We have such strong relationships and an engaged community. We’re at the cusp of helping protect our landscapes, lives and property,” Larimer County Commissioner Jody Shadduck-McNally said in a prepared statement.

The project is a key initiative of the Big Thompson Watershed Health Partnership, dedicated to reducing wildfire risk and strengthening community resilience.

Specifically, project activities will occur within the geographic boundaries defined in the Community Wildfire Protection Plans, written and adopted by the Estes Valley Fire Protection District, the Glen Haven and Retreat communities, and the Loveland Fire and Rescue Authority.

Project activities include:

• Mitigation treatments to establish and enhance defensible space on as many as 900 parcels.
• Education on wildfire preparedness and “home ignition zones” practices through up to 75 community events.
• Landscape-scale wildfire mitigation treatments covering up to 500 acres on open spaces and larger properties.
• Strategic fuels treatments along up to seven miles of key roadways.
• Enhancement of community capacity to manage the abundance of post-treatment woody biomass through up to 30 community events.
• Improvements in evacuation plans and procedures.

Partners in the Protecting the Gateway to the Rockies project include Upstate Colorado Economic Development, the Larimer County Office of Emergency Management, Peaks to People Water Fund, Estes Valley Watershed Coalition, Estes Valley Fire Protection District, Big Thompson Watershed Coalition, Loveland Fire Rescue Authority, the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office, Pinewood Road Association and the Pinewood Lake Wildfire Action Group, Storm Mountain Wildfire Action Group, Glen Haven Association, Glen Haven Area Volunteer Fire Department, Larimer County Conservation Corps, The Ember Alliance, The Nature Conservancy, the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, Estes Valley Land Trust, Colorado State Forest Service, Northern Colorado Fireshed Collaborative and the Big Thompson Watershed Health Partnership.

This project is part of the $200 million investment in 58 Community Wildfire Defense Grant program projects made by the Forest Service. In May 2024, Larimer County and the Coalition for the Poudre River Watershed also received a $9.6 million Community Wildfire Defense Grant for the Red Feather Lakes Area Wildfire Defense Project.

The collaborative effort from this project is another example of the partnerships in Northern Colorado that will reduce wildfire risk and strengthen community resilience throughout the region.

“Thank you to all of our partners very much. This work doesn’t happen in a vacuum. We all have to work together on these projects,” Larimer County Commissioner Kristin Stephens said in a county news release. “To be able to have these grant dollars to be able to address these issues in our wildfire regions is very important.”

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