Garfield County is a hotbed for wildfires, and it needs to find reliable funding for fire mitigation, according to Kevin Whelan, a member of Colorado Fire Commission who has fought fires locally for decades.
The solution could lie in creating a Forest Improvement Special District — a locally led, tax-funded authority that leads mitigation efforts across county and private land, Whelan told county commissioners last week.
Commissioners appeared open to exploring the creation of such a district in Garfield County. They said that if one were created, they’d likely want to fund it only through sales tax increases and grants.
Whelan argued that wildfire mitigation has proven to be more cost-effective than suppression. He cited the front range’s Buffalo Creek fire, which burned near Silverthorne in 2018. Summit County has since estimated that the approximately $1 million in mitigation work done beforehand prevented over $1 billion in damages.
A forest improvement district could lead to similar results in Garfield County, initiating and funding mitigation efforts in place of state and federal grants, which are competitive and unreliable.
The county sees multiple wildfires varying in size every year, including August’s 600-acre 310 fire, June’s Dry Creek fire, which burned 316 acres, and the Willow Fire, which burned down an apartment complex in Rifle.
Last year, the Lee fire started in neighboring Rio Blanco County, then quickly blew south toward Rifle, burning 137,800 acres and becoming the fifth largest wildfire in Colorado history. The Derby fire also burned 5,349 acres across Garfield and Eagle counties in the White River National Forest.
“There are no jurisdictional boundaries in wildfire; it affects us all,” said Whelan, who jokes that he fought more wildfires during his first two weeks in Rifle than he did over 20 years in Vail.
Researchers from Colorado State University project that the state could see two to five times more wildfire activity by midcentury — an issue driven by warming temperatures, persistent drought and ever-thicker undergrowth.
That kind of increase would impact not just the properties that are burned, Whelan said, but the surrounding residents breathing in smoke and paying higher home insurance rates.
If the county were to move forward with creating a forest improvement district, local officials could create the district’s boundaries and structure however it wants, Whelan said. The county would share voting power with any municipalities who wish to join the district, as well as the state’s forest service, a federal land management agency and representatives from environmental, conservation and water groups.
A fire district’s revenue could be used in cooperation with the state and federal agencies and conservation districts. Reducing insect epidemics, nonnative species and replanting trees in deforested areas are all broader options for revenue use.
The funds raised could also be used to offer financial incentives of up to $10,000 to private landowners doing fire mitigation on their properties, according to Colorado’s outlines for the districts.
“There will be way more work than there will be funding to do,” said Commissioner Perry Will.
If sales taxes were to be increased by 0.25% across Glenwood Springs, Parachute, Rifle and Garfield County, a forest improvement district could raise $1.2 million annually. If those municipalities were to increase sales taxes by 1%, it would raise $4.86 million, according to a county memo using numbers from 2024.
Forest improvement districts have been outlined in state law since 2007, but they’ve seldom been put to use across the state. That’s in part due to poor messaging about what the districts are and can accomplish, Whelan said.
He’s spent the past two years leading the Colorado Fire Commission’s subcommittee on the improvement districts, exploring the benefits of what they could offer municipalities like Garfield County.
Voter outreach and education would be key to passing such a measure, Whelan said.
He noted that wildfire — put next to snow, tornadoes or hurricanes — is the only natural occurrence that communities fight against. With other weather situations, communities proactively plan responses, harden homes and mitigate the impacts beforehand.
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound,” said Commissioner Mike Samson.
Drew Shaw is a Report for America corps member covering public lands in Garfield County for the Aspen Daily News.
