Nearly 4,000 Households in Boulder County Have Participated in the Program

Boulder County, Colo. - Wildfire Partners recently received the prestigious national Wildfire Mitigation Award, the highest national honor an organization can receive for outstanding work and impact in wildfire preparedness and mitigation.

“This recognition is a tribute to the unprecedented collaboration between a variety of stakeholders who increasingly recognize our need to adapt to the growing impacts of wildland fires," said Jim Webster, Program Manager for Wildfire Partners. "We established Wildfire Partners in 2014 knowing that this would require an intensive, comprehensive team effort. This award is for all the homeowners, staff, and partner organizations we work with, both inside and outside the county.”

Wildfire Partners provides technical and financial assistance to homeowners, community-based outreach and education, and local grant-making to organizations in Boulder County. To date, 3,799 household have participated in the program and committed to maintain their mitigation for as long as the live in their homes.

The work of Wildfire Partners is a collaboration between Boulder County, local fire protection districts, other government agencies, insurance companies, community groups, realtors, and researchers. In 2022, following the Marshall Fire, Boulder County voters passed a Wildfire Mitigation Sales Tax that supports an increasing number of mitigation activities.

Services That Wildfire Partners Offers Include:

• Assistance available to all Boulder County communities by providing education and outreach programming and mitigation services to design and implement community action plans.
• Assistance to individual homeowners in the western part of Boulder County to mitigate risk and earn a Wildfire Partners Certificate that helps them obtain or retain insurance coverage.
• Community chipping of large piles of high-risk vegetation, also known as “slash".
• Free mitigation services for vulnerable individuals and communities provided by youth crews.
• Funding in the form of Strategic Fuels Mitigation Grants for forest and grasslands management.
• Rebates for homeowners throughout the county to harden their homes and create defensible space (coming soon).

The Wildfire Mitigation Awards are jointly sponsored by the National Association of State Foresters, the International Association of Fire Chiefs, the National Fire Protection Association, and the USDA Forest Service. By honoring the achievements of awardees, the program sponsors seek to increase public recognition and awareness of the value of wildfire mitigation efforts.

Wildfire Partners will join this year’s awardees to be recognized at the Wildland-Urban Interface Conference in Reno, Nevada on March 27, 2024.