Summary by Katie McGrath Novak, Colorado Forest Health Council Member serving as “an individual employed by or associated with a forest collaborative organization”
This document summarizes points from the February 6th, 2025 Colorado Forest Health Council quarterly meeting that I believe are most relevant to Colorado’s place-based forest collaboratives. It is an interpretation of discussions from the meeting, but is not an official Forest Health Council document.
Additional resources:
- Meeting recording (coming soon!)
- Colorado Forest Resilience Planning Guide
- Next CFHC meeting date: April 30th, 2025 (hybrid: virtual/Pagosa Springs)
- Additional resources from the Colorado Forest Collaboratives Network (not official Colorado Forest Health Council resources):
- Colorado Forest Collaboratives Network (CFCN) resource page: Keeping up with the Colorado Forest Health Council
- In case you missed it: October 30, 2024 quarterly meeting summary
Contents:
- New Members Appointed to the CFHC
- Update on past CFHC recommended or supported bills
- Update on current legislation
- Legislative Committee: 2026 Legislative Recommendations
- Committee on Leveraging Resources Update & Adoption of the Colorado Forest Resilience Planning Guide
- 30-Year Vision for Forest Health in Colorado
- Roundtable updates
- Public comment
New Members Appointed to the CFHC
The CFHC welcomed a new member:
- Representative Larry Don Suckla, as a Governor-appointed member of the Colorado General Assembly
Update on Past Recommended or Supported Bills
Speaker: James Lucero, Associate Director, Policy and Legislative Affairs, Colorado State Forest Service
James updated us on the current progress of bills that the CFHC has either recommended, and/or supported in the past.
SB23-005 | Forestry and Wildfire Mitigation Workforce
- This bill was the CFHC’s first workforce bill, recommended in 2023
- It gave money for institutions of higher education to expand or create new programs, and created internship opportunities in the timber industry
- Money was allocated last year; programs are currently up and running
- One highlighted success: this funding allowed for the purchase of a construction simulator to be used at Pueblo Community College (learn more in this article)
- The program is now wrapping up
HB23-1060 | Updates to State Forest Service Tree Nursery
- Demolition is in progress, and building of the new nursery is expected to begin in the next few months
- SB25-115 is likely to pass in the next few weeks to extend spending authority into 2027
HB23-1069 | Study of Biochar in Plugging Oil and Gas Wells
- This bill passed, tasking a team to study the use of biochar in the plugging of oil and gas wells
- The study is now complete, and recommendations resulting from the study are currently being finalized
HB24-1006 | Assist Rural Community Wildfire-Related Grant Application
- This bill established a rural grant navigator grant program to provide grant money to nongovernmental organizations providing outreach and technical assistance to rural communities seeking to apply for state or federal grants for wildfire mitigation and preparedness
- A program manager has been hired, and a request for recommendations will be available soon
HB24-1024 | Extend Outreach Campaigns Wildfire Risk Mitigation
- This bill extended the CSFS Live Wildfire Ready outreach campaign with additional funds
- This money will focus on Wildfire Awareness Month in May
SB24-009 | Local Government Disaster-Related Programs
- This recommendation came from the CFHC and proposed a pilot program for county slash pickup days
- Though the bill had strong bipartisan support in the House and Senate, it ultimately did not get passed due to budget limitations
Update on Current Legislation
Speaker: Commissioner Jody Shadduck-McNally
HB25-1078 | Forestry & Firefighter Workforce and Education
- In our 2024 Annual Report, the CFHC recommended a bill to expand and implement Extensions programs and initiatives for the purpose of increasing awareness of and interest in areas of forestry, wildland fire, and natural resources (forest health) in youth and young adults
- The bill got picked up, and was later merged with another bill from the Colorado Fire Commission to invest in firefighter training and promote firefighting careers to youth
- The Legislative Committee sought approval for the CFHC to take an official ‘support’ stance on the bill in its new form
- Colorado Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has an official ‘support’ stance on this bill
- Colorado Department of Fire Prevention and Control (DFPC) has a ‘neutral’ stance on this bill, mainly due to anticipated scrutiny of the $1.2million fiscal note during a tight budget year
The CFHC voted to support this bill.
SB25-007 | Increase Prescribed Burns
- This bill would establish a prescribed fire claims fund and expand the definition of a “certified burner” to include individuals who meet certain reciprocity requirements
- See the full bill text for specifics on how the claims fund would work, who is eligible, and what the reciprocity standards would entail
- Discussion: this bill did not come from the CFHC/Colorado Fire Commission’s joint Prescribed Fire Subcommittee, but the subcommittee was working on very similar recommendations at the same time that this bill was being created, so we anticipate support from the subcommittee
- Paige Lewis (The Nature Conservancy) noted that, due to budget constraints this year, even if the fiscal note associated with the claims fund does not pass, there is hope that they could at least pass the creation of a claims fund to be filled later or with private donations
- DNR and DFPC both formally take a ‘neutral’ stance on this, partially due to the associated fiscal note and budget constraints
The CFHC voted to support this bill.
Legislative Committee Update:
2026 Legislative Recommendations
Speaker: Commissioner Jody Shadduck-McNally
The CFHC voted to approve four new legislative recommendations for the 2026 legislative session, plus one additional suggestion that does not require legislative action.
Click through each recommendation below to expand it and read the full recommendation text as approved by the Council.
The Forest Health Council recommends the General Assembly maintain the current annual appropriations for the vitally important forest health and wildfire mitigation programs improving the health of Colorado’s forests including the Healthy Forest Vibrant Communities (FHVC) program, Forest Restoration and Wildfire Risk Mitigation Grant Program (FRWRM), and the Colorado Strategic Action Program (COSWAP).
The Healthy Forest Vibrant Communities Act increases the capacity of the Colorado State Forest Service (CSFS) to ensure the long-term health and vitality of Colorado’s forests. It is the role of the CSFS to provide private landowners, communities and partners with the tools they need to address forest and watershed health and wildfire risk to communities and the forests that surround them.
The FRWRM program provides state support through competitive grant funds that encourage community-level actions across the state for purposes of reducing the risk of wildfire to people, property and infrastructure in the wildland-urban interface (WUI), promoting forest health and forest restoration projects, and encourage use of woody material for traditional forest products and biomass energy.
COSWAP funds high priority wildfire mitigation projects in strategic focus areas through two unique programs. The Workforce Development Grant Program works with conservation corps and the Department of Corrections SWIFT crews to reduce wildfire risk to life, property and infrastructure while also supporting, entry level training opportunities and experience for individuals interested in wildfire mitigation and forestry. Secondly, COSWAP’s Landscape Resilience Investment funding makes targeted investments in strategic focus areas through landscape scale fuels mitigation projects.
These programs are all complementary and unique. They each support forest health through differing implementation and funding strategies. The demand for forest health and wildfire mitigation far exceeds current investments; in 2024 FRWRM and COSWAP were only able to fund 34% of the total demand for forest health funding. The state can not afford to divest from this effort.
1. The Good Neighbor Authority (GNA) allows the state to complete important forest health projects on federal lands, increasing the scale of work and allowing for cross boundary planning and implementation. It is an important tool for shared stewardship. The Colorado Forest Health Council recommends increasing or expanding state funding for GNA programs (based on Washington/Oregon/Montana programs).
Justification: The states where GNA is working the best have seen significant state investments in their GNA programs, including annual appropriations. This has allowed them to act as partners in Shared Stewardship in a tangible way.
- Comparison shown below on annual state funding received for GNA:
- Montana – $14M
- Washington – $20M
- Oregon – $29M
- Colorado – $6M
2. Modify language in Colorado Revised Statute to reflect recent national changes in GNA policy, including expansion of GNA to National Park Service (NPS) and US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), and expansion of authority to “authorized recreation services.” This could allow spending state dollars on NPS / USFWS lands, in line with the Wildly Important Goal of balancing conservation and outdoor recreation through Good Neighbor Authority.
Biomass includes wood, slash and other vegetation that is produced as a result of fuels reduction for forest health and wildfire mitigation work. All fuels reduction projects produce biomass that is reduced in a number of ways including burning, chipping, mulching, composting, etc.. Biomass removal and utilization continues to be a challenging component of many forest health and wildfire mitigation projects, and in some cases- cost prohibitive.
Solutions for this challenge are needed to increase the scale of forestry work in Colorado. A state-wide biomass assessment is expected to be complete in the spring of 2025. The Council recommends exploring solutions to the removal,collection and aggregation, processing, transportation, and/or utilization of biomass identified in the study. Solutions may be found in existing or new markets recognized in the assessment. Careful consideration will be given to incorporating lessons learned from the assessment, previous studies, and past efforts to increase biomass removal and supply chain infrastructure and to decrease costs.
HB25-1078, Forestry & Firefighter Workforce & Education, was introduced in the 2025 legislative session. The Colorado Forest Health Council understands funding is limited and if HB25-1078 does not pass, or if the forestry workforce component is removed, the Council recommends that the concept be re-recommended in 2026.
The original recommendation can be found in the 2024 annual report page 11.
The Committee requests the full Council approve the planning of an education event for legislators in the 2026 session. This would likely include breakfast and information sharing during the first two weeks of the session.
Objective: Educate and raise awareness of the Council’s work, the urgent need for forestry and wildfire mitigation work, and successes in the state.
Ideas for inclusion:
- Forest Health Council information including annual report
- 2055 Vision for Forest Health in Colorado
- Return on investment statistics
- A showcase of successful leveraged resources, including water utilities and CSFS Programs, story boards with photos of successful projects, wildfire impacts, etc.
- Good Neighbor Authority education for policy makers- one pager for education of the importance and need for investment
- Other challenges and opportunities
Committee on Leveraging Resources Update &
Approval of the Forest Resilience Planning Guide
Speakers: Katie McGrath Novak & Brett Wolk
General update from the Committee on Leveraging Resources
In 2025, the Committee on Leveraging Resources will focus on working toward the following goal: align funding sources with forest planning needs, for ease and equity of access
To achieve that goal, we will:
- Identify common challenges with accessing funding, and possible solutions to overcoming them
- Using information from objective 1, brainstorm what programs/people this group is connected to and how we can leverage those connections to fill in our 2025 schedule.
- Using the information from objectives 1 and 2, fill in the 2025 planning committee schedule with:
- Connecting funders and fundees to facilitate conversations
- Connecting funders with other funders to facilitate alignment
- Deliberation meetings for us to identify recommendations for the CFHC annual report
- Create specific, measurable, actionable recommendations to include in the CFHC annual report.
Approval of the Colorado Forest Resilience Planning Guide
Last year, the CFHC passed this recommendation: Develop a planning guide to assist with positioning all areas and communities in Colorado to better leverage resources, knowledge share, and be competitive at receiving funding to achieve effective forest health management and resiliency
What the guide does: provides a framework for aligning collaboration, community values, and technical and financial resources in shaping forest management planning, to assist Colorado communities working towards:
- Collaboratively developing and implementing forest resilience strategies
- Landscapes throughout a county or multiple adjacent counties
- To better mitigate, respond, and recover from common forest disturbances
Intended audience for the guide:
- Local agencies, large landowners, and place-based collaboratives to improve coordination in forest management strategies and effectively leverage resources
- Policymakers, program managers, and funding agencies to better align their resources with the planning needs across Colorado
Structure of the guide:
- The guide follows the Collaborative Stages of Readiness Framework
- It breaks each of the four stages of readiness into 3-5 actions, and for each action, provides key questions, supporting resources, level-of-effort estimation, activities, templates, case studies, and more!
- To hear a detailed overview of the guide’s structure and how to use it, watch this segment of our October CFHC meeting (30 minutes)
CHFC 30-Year Vision
Speaker: Rebecca Samulski
About the CFHC 30-Year Vision & Visioning Process so far
One of the CFHC’s statutory duties, according to the legislation that created the CFHC, is: “Development of, and recommendations for, attaining a thirty-year vision for forest health in Colorado, including developing goals and both annual and multi-year recommendations for actions to improve forest health and reduce fire risk through increased funding and capacity building.”
In 2024, Rebecca Samulski from Fire Adapted Colorado has led the CFHC through a visioning process. We started with a survey to understand what components CFHC members would like to see in a 30-year vision for forest health in Colorado, then had a visioning workshop in October.
A draft vision went out for public comment in late 2024 / early 2025, and at this meeting, Rebecca presented the next draft of the vision.
On February 6th, councilmembers reviewed the latest draft and suggested a few additional changes before approval.
We expect to approve the final vision at our April 2025 quarterly CFHC meeting.
Roundtable Updates
In addition to sharing general updates, council members were asked to share any impacts they are facing in their work related to recent executive orders.
Katie McGrath Novak, serving as an individual employed or associated with a forest collaborative organization
The Colorado Forest Collaboratives Network (CFCN) is not facing direct impacts from recent executive orders; however, we are hearing concerns from local collaboratives, mostly related to funding uncertainty.
To learn more about the CFCN and what we got up to in 2024, check out our 2024 Year In Review newsletter.
Christina Burri, Colorado State Forest Service (standing in for Director Matt McCombs)
The CSFS is awaiting guidance from USDA and Colorado State University related to executive orders, but has so far not received any stop-work orders for forest management.
The CSFS nursery is under construction. There will be a groundbreaking ceremony in the next few months!
Julie Stencel, serving as an individual employed by a public utility that owns or operates transmission facilities
The Public Utilities Commission will host three virtual public comment hearings on Xcel Energy’s Wildfire Mitigation Plan, Proceeding No. 24A-0296E, over the next few months. The PUC invites community members to provide comments regarding the Company’s $1.9 billion plan for wildfire mitigation.
The next opportunities to attend a public comment hearing are:
- Thursday, March 13
9 a.m. to 11 a.m. (register here) - Tuesday, April 29
4 p.m. to 6 p.m. (register here)
If you can’t attend a hearing, you can also submit public comment by:
- Submitting written comments using the Commission’s online form
- Submitting through email
- Mailing comments to the Commission’s offices at: Colorado Public Utilities Commission, 1560 Broadway, Suite 250, Denver, CO 80202
- Calling (303) 869-3490 to leave oral comments (English and Spanish options)
Click here to learn more and/or register for the public comment hearings.
Madelene McDonald, serving as an individual employed by a water supplier, including a municipal drinking water supplier and an irrigation water supplier, east of the continental divide
Folks at Denver Water have been having lots of conversations about the wildfires in Los Angeles; this opinion piece from Denver Water CEO/Manager Alan Salazar outlines some of what Denver Water has been working on related to building a more resilient system.
Clyde Church, serving as a county commissioner west of the continental divide
La Plata County has so far been ‘business as usual’ with the executive orders, as the state acts as a buffer between counties and federal.
There has been almost no snow in La Plata County this year, so Commissioner Church’s HOA has continued thinning and chipping fire mitigation projects throughout the winter.
Vaughn Jones, proxy for Mike Morgan, Director of Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control
The Division of Fire Prevention and Control’s fuels module on the Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest has continued operations.
Brett Wolk, serving as an individual employed by a research institution and who has forest policy expertise
The Colorado Forest Restoration Institute has so far not seen budget impacts as a result of new executive orders. The broader research community, however, has seen massive impacts due to grant programs changing.
John Ring, Forestry Program Lead, Bureau of Land Management
A new Secretary of Interior, Doug Burgum, was sworn in this week.
There are some immediate impacts due to new executive orders. Some BLM Notices of Funding Opportunities have been retracted and are no longer accepting applications at this time. Some contracts are still moving forward but only on certain things. There is a hold on BIL and IRA money at this time. Additional impacts are to be determined, as some executive orders are still making their way through the agency.
Director Dan Gibbs, Executive Director of the Department of Natural Resources & CFHC Chair
Regarding new executive orders, the most heavily impacted aspect of DNR work is the orphan well program which is funded by IIJA. The Colorado Strategic Wildfire Action Program (COSWAP) will not be affected as it is state-funded.
The COSWAP program is funding five new landscape resilience investments, and this is its first year partnering with the Wildfire Ready Watersheds program.
Public Comment
Bill Trimarco, Wildfire Adapted Partnership
Wildfire Adapted Partnership (WAP) is a 501c3 that has promoted wildfire education and project implementation in southwest Colorado since 2003. They are mostly funded through Bureau of Land Management and other federal grants. The impact of new executive orders on Wildfire Adapted Partnership has been intense. On January 27th, funds from a CWDG grant (which funds over 90% of mitigation projects) were frozen. Two days later, they reopened, but they have been told that these funds will most likely be delayed, or stopped entirely, soon. All WAP operations will cease soon if these decisions are not changed.
To learn more about Wildfire Adapted Partnership and their recent accomplishments, check out their 2024 Accomplishments Report.
Rebecca Samulski, Fire Adapted Colorado
Much of the discussion around legislative recommendations in this meeting centered around hesitation to recommend anything with funding attached to it, due to a tight budget year. Rebecca emphasized the importance of the work we do and the immense cost savings that fire mitigation can have compared to the cost of a wildfire.
Getting involved with the Colorado Forest Health Council
Attend meetings | Next meeting: April 30, 2024 | All Forest Health Council meetings are open to the public and have a segment for public comment toward the end of the meeting.
Agenda and Zoom link will be posted on the Forest Health Council webpage at least 24 hours ahead of the meeting. The Colorado Forest Collaboratives Network will also distribute meeting information when we receive it.
Meeting summaries | The CFCN compiles summaries like this, along with other relevant resources, on our page Keeping Up With the Colorado Forest Health Council.
Contact | Katie McGrath Novak, Coordinator, Colorado Forest Collaboratives Network; Forest Health Council member serving as “an individual employed by or associated with a forest collaborative organization”
