A committee of state legislators studying the wildfire threat in Colorado is proposing a requirement that all counties have wildfire preparedness plans and is looking to put $50 million over five years into wildfire mitigation efforts.
The money would be used to reduce forest fire risk not only on state and private land but also on federal land, an arrangement that state Sen. Mike Kopp, R-Littleton, called “unprecedented.”
“We will really be able to make significant dents into the problem that exists and the public safety challenges that exist,” Kopp said.
The committee, which wrapped up its work this month, also is proposing bills providing incentives for people to become volunteer firefighters and for businesses to harvest trees killed by bark beetles. The panel plans to introduce the bills early next year when the legislature starts its work again.
However, the committee declined to give its support to a proposal that would have created special building code requirements for homes and subdivisions being built in the “wildland-urban interface” zone, the area most at risk for a catastrophic wildfire and where more than 300,000 homes already exist in Colorado.
“I think that everyone on the committee agreed that was an important topic to address,” said state Sen. Dan Gibbs, a Silverthorne Democrat and part-time wildland firefighter who was chairman of the committee. “But there was a need to engage more folks who did not participate on our committee.”
Gibbs said the idea could reappear in a bill during the coming legislative session.
With beetles having destroyed 1.5 million acres of lodgepole pine in Colorado’s mountain forests, the risks from wildfire have become a hot issue at the Capitol. The committee met six times during the summer, including a trip to Summit and Grand counties, where beetle devastation is worst.
“What we were looking at was an example of a new threat that has developed in Colorado that really wasn’t on our radar screen five years ago,” said state Rep. Claire Levy, D-Boulder. “It has created a new burden on our first responders, and it has created the potential for new demands on our budget.”
A number of mountain communities already have wildfire plans, said Andy Karsian, a legislative liaison with Colorado Counties Inc. The bill that the committee is proposing not only would provide standards and guidelines for those plans, but it also would ensure those local plans are coordinated.
“This is a good opportunity to solidify all those plans under one umbrella on the county level,” Karsian said.
Terry McCann, a regional spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service, said the agency also supports the committee’s efforts.
John Ingold: 303-954-1068 or jingold@denverpost.com
