The Boulder County commissioners held a town hall meeting at Sunshine Canyon Fire Station 1 on June 18, 2024. As well as updating Sunshine Canyon residents on the status of the Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP), the commissioners got a chance to listen to resident concerns and discuss issues that are familiar to most mountain communities.

Staff from the Wildfire Partners Program, which is part of Boulder County’s Community Planning Permit department, started the meeting with a presentation on the program. Wildfire Partners was created in 2014 and is a nationally recognized program that provides assessments to individuals and communities regarding wildfire mitigation and hardening homes.

Wildfire Partners Program Director Jim Webster thanked the residents for all their efforts over the years to mitigate their properties, which he characterized as the model for how to create wildfire resiliency in a community.

Outreach Program Coordinator Abby Silver gave a slide presentation on the Wildfire Partners Program and highlighted the benefits of the wildfire mitigation sales tax, which goes toward funding projects including the Wildfire Partners grant and rebate programs.

Silver said that the community chipping program has been very successful, and free individual home assessments will continue to be offered.

Forest and Grasslands Projects Coordinator Meg Halford gave a short presentation on the Strategic Fuels Mitigation Grants program. The program provides funding for strategic landscape or communitywide projects. It significantly reduces the landowner match that is required for other grant programs.

In the 2023 fall cycle, Wildfire Partners awarded ten fuel mitigation projects and three planning projects, worth a total of $1.5 million. For the 2024 cycle, the budget will be $2.4 million.

Halford also gave a brief update on the revisions to the county CWPP. The County plan covers the whole county, while the individual fire districts like Nederland will each have a separate CWPP tailored to their district. The County and fire district plans will be complementary.

There were eight community engagement meetings around the county in 2023. The initial draft of the CWPP has been reviewed by the core team and is scheduled to be released in July for public comment, which will end July 31. After incorporating the public comments, the final draft will be released in August, with a scheduled vote for approval by the commissioners at their August 20 meeting.

In the public forum part of the meeting, residents spoke about a variety of concerns that are prevalent in mountain communities. There were concerns regarding transients setting up permanent camps on national forest land, the destruction caused by ATV vehicles when they leave established roads, the proliferation of unauthorized trails in the forests, and unattended campfires.

A particular concern raised by multiple residents was the dangerous parking of cars around the Lions Lair trailhead. The road is used by the school bus, and one parent was concerned about the safety of the bus on the road. Another resident said that he had brought up the issue at the last town hall meeting, and it was still unresolved.

Commissioner Ashley Stolzmann spoke about the process of dealing with state and federal entities to resolve these kinds of issues and said that the County was continuing to work with these partners on the problem.

The commissioners ended the town hall with final comments. They pledged to follow up on the issues that had been raised at the meeting. Commissioner Claire Levy thanked the group for their open and honest feedback, and their warm hospitality.

The Wildfire Partners website (wildfirepartners.org) has information on their free wildfire assessment program as well as articles on how to create wildfire-resilient landscapes and homes. The Boulder County CWPP website (bouldercounty.gov/disasters/ wildfires/mitigation/communitywildfire-protection-plan) has the link to review and comment on the revised plan along with a wealth of material on wildfire mitigation research.