At yesterday’s Chaffee County Commissioner’s meeting the Chaffee County Community Wildfire Protection Plan was passed.
The process of putting together the plan has been 18 months in the making and included more than a thousand county residents.
Signed by county commissioners, local fire chiefs and the Colorado State Forest Service, the Community Wildfire Protection Plan establishes long-range recommendations that protect what residents indicated they value most: human lives, drinking water supply, essential infrastructure, homes, wildlife habitat, and recreation assets that support the local economy.
The plan states that treating 5-10 percent of the landscape can reduce the risk that wildfire posses to community assets by 50-70 percent.
Chaffee County’s 10-year-goal is to treat up to 30,000 acres through management projects like tree thinning and prescribed burns.
The plan also develops programs to encourage and enable citizens to improve their defensible space, have personal evacuation plans in place, and make their neighborhoods more fire resilient.
Program leadership partners formed the Envision Forest Health Council to support the plan’s implementation, which will cost an estimated $30-$50 million. Funding will be raised through grants and state and federal sources, along with the revenues generated by .25 percent sales tax increase approved by voters in 2018.
