County and Community Wildfire Protection Plans

In 2000, the Colorado Legislature authorized counties to create county-wide wildland fire management plans.  These plans include not only county and state lands, but also private and federal lands where landowners and managers are willing to cooperate on wildland fire management.  The BLM supports the effort by providing maps, information, technical assistance, and financial support to those counties in which the agency manages lands.  The Colorado State Forest Service (CSFS), Colorado Counties Inc., and the BLM sponsors fire planning workshops for county commissioners, sheriffs, fire chiefs, and county planners.  Most Colorado counties where the BLM manages significant acreage have completed or are working on county wildfire protection plans.  

County fire plans serve many purposes; one of the most important is identifying communities and other values-at-risk from wildfire and setting priorities for mitigating those threats.  When a community or neighborhood is identified as a priority, the BLM directs its resources to developing plans to reduce the fire threat on public lands in the vicinity of community values-at-risk.  Meanwhile, the CSFS works with the American Red Cross, sheriffs, local Offices of Emergency Management, and local fire departments to organize educational programs to encourage fire hazard mitigation on private lands.  The BLM provides technical and financial assistance to support these community fire education programs.

After a county fire plan identifies communities-at-risk and sets mitigation priorities, the next step is preparing a Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP). The CWPP assesses wildfire threats to a neighborhood or community and the surrounding landscape.  It also locates values-at-risk in detail and determines the specific vegetation management, road improvements, water sources, warning systems, evacuation routes, necessary changes to buildings to make them less flammable, fire department preparedness, and other actions needed to reduce the threat of wildfires. The CSFS takes the lead in community wildfire protection planning, but the county fire mitigation specialist, sheriff, American Red Cross, rural fire department, or other organization may also carry out the actual planning.  In each case, the BLM collaborates in the planning effort and provides technical advice on fire ecology, vegetation management, and community fire preparedness, as well as offering financial assistance to communities.  When possible, the BLM involves community residents and stakeholders in data collection and fire planning analysis on neighboring public lands.

Vegetation / Fuels Management

Vegetation management projects may be planned across public and private lands in ways adapted to the topography and fuels.  Typically this kind of planning reduces costs and provides enhanced protection from wildfire.  In some cases where public lands will also benefit, the BLM may share the cost of vegetation treatments on private land and provide technical assistance in project planning.  In Colorado, the BLM’s policy is to use the priorities established in the county wildfire management plans to guide the selection and prioritization of fuels management projects on public lands.

In 2001, Colorado Counties Inc. held a series of workshops to encourage county-wide fire planning throughout the state.  The BLM helped fund the workshops and participated as part of the training cadre.  Representatives from most counties in the state attended these workshops.  Such workshops are beneficial sites for interagency wildfire planning and setting resource management objectives.

An Example – The Eckland Fire Use for Resource Benefit

The Eckland Wildland Fire Use incident in Moffat County is an example of how interagency wildland fire planning can utilize fire. Prior to the beginning of the Eckland Fire, BLM established agreements with local landowners in the area. These agreements were put in place to allow fires to burn without restriction in the management area, reducing costs and enhancing the resource benefits of a natural fire occurrence.  These agreements were built on the fire planning efforts in Moffat County.  The positive outcome of these agreements lead to national recognition for the county fire management plan and also helped highlight how wildland fire-use fires can be managed on the appropriate landscape-scale across private and public lands jurisdictions.