In the wake of the 2020 wildfire season with the East Troublesome and Cameron Peak wildfires, Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed a proclamation in April of 2021 declaring May as Wildfire Awareness Month to annually promote preparing for and preventing wildfires. Colorado is one of many states that recognize May as a time for education and action regarding reducing the threat of wildfires.

The Director of Colorado’s Division of Fire Prevention and Control, Mike Morgan said, at the time of the proclamation: “Wildfire is a concern for all communities and our entire state, and all of us need to be a part of the solution. We are calling on those that live, work, and play in Colorado to help reduce the impact of wildfires by being vigilant, respecting fire restrictions when they are in place, and doing your part to protect your property from wildfire.”

While the proclamation is relatively recent, wildfire prevention and preparation has been ongoing in Gilpin County well before the governor’s proclamation. The US Forest Service has engaged in four large-scale fuel reduction projects in the area starting in 2014 with the Yankee Hill project in Clear Creek and Gilpin counties. That project was followed by the Lump Gulch project in the middle of Gilpin County and the West Magnolia and Forsythe thinning projects in Boulder County. These four projects stretched over fifteen years and three counties and are either completed or close to completion at this time.

The other public lands in the area that have been mitigated recently have been Golden Gate Canyon State Park and Maryland Mountain which is owned by the city of Black Hawk. The state park did a lot of mitigation in the 2010s on the east side of Tremont. Black Hawk did mitigation work on Maryland Mountain when they developed their Hidden Treasure trails. Maryland Mountain is very defensible now. The Clear Creek Watershed and Forest Health Partnership is seeking grant money for mitigation work on Missouri Creek in Pickle Gulch.

In the last fifteen years, the volunteer fire departments High Country and Colorado Sierra merged into the single entity Timberline Fire Protection District that has expanded over the years to provide fire protection to all of rural Gilpin County and parts of Boulder County. With their local proximity, they are some of the first firefighters to arrive at the scene of a wildfire. Property owners in the district supported Timberline by passing a mill levy adjustment in 2017.

Timberline continues to expand with the purchase and refurbishing of the Fitz Observatory south of Rollinsville as a premier firefighting center. They also created a new division in 2022 to handle fire mitigation by helping landowners with their defensible space work. Timberline’s website (www.timberlinefire.com) has information on how to contact Mitigation Coordinator Garth Wagner for an appointment for a home wildfire risk assessment.

Gilpin County government has also increased their involvement over the years in wildfire prevention and preparation through the Office of Emergency Management, the CSU Extension Agent, and the Slash Yard. The Office of Emergency Management is part of the sheriff’s office and is tasked with organizing emergency operations like a mass evacuation. The CSU Extension Agent, Jennifer Cook, works to promote forest health issues in the county. She has put out a wildfire preparedness checklist that can be accessed with the search term Gilpin Wildfire Mitigation Quick Checklist. She is also following the return of pine beetles and is urging owners to check their trees for signs of pitch tubes which would indicate an infested tree.

The Gilpin County slash yard opened for the season on April 27 and will be open into October. In the early 2000s, the slash yard was unsupervised and occasionally chipped. It led to people outside the county using it as a dumping ground for old tires, metal, and construction materials as well as slash. These foreign objects caused damage to the chipper and were dangerous to the crew.

For the last decade the slash yard has been supervised and the season has been expanded to six months. Residents have brought thousands of loads of slash to the slash yard over the years to create defensible space around their homes and improve safety in their subdivisions. During the beetle pandemic years around 2010, the slash yard had a separate place for infected logs. Stumps are still prohibited because they might have rocks between the roots.

The slash yard is free for county residents with the county sticker. There is a fee for non-county residents and a commercial business. This combination of a public slash site along with citizen efforts to mitigate their private property contributes to reducing the risks of wildfires in the county.

The promotion of May as Wildfire Awareness Month is meant to heighten awareness of living safely in wildfire country. Reid Armstrong from the US Forest Service said that wildfire is as much a part of the landscape as pine or bees or wildflowers. It is our responsibility to learn how to live with it through vigilance and preparedness.