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About the Program

The Wildfire Risk Mitigation Loan Fund provides community-based financial lending capital to support forest and wood products businesses and compliments traditional grant programs.

Program Overview

The Forest Business Loan Fund (FBLF), established by Colorado House Bill 09-1199 (HB-1199), provides lending capital to businesses that “harvest, remove, use, and market beetle-killed and other timber taken from private, federal, state, county, or municipal forestlands as part of wildfire risk reduction or fuels mitigation treatment.”

The purpose of the FBLF is to help retain forest-based businesses, maintain and/or increase local jobs, and contribute to the stability of local economies.

Eligible Applicants

  1. A business must be for profit. State and local governments as well as community and non-profit organizations are not eligible.
  2. A business must have a physical address within Colorado.
  3. A business must “harvest, remove, use, and market beetle-killed and other timber taken from private, federal, state, county, or municipal forestlands as part of wildfire risk reduction or fuels mitigation treatment.”

The Application Process

  1. Complete and submit the CSFS Business Loan Fund Application Worksheet (50 KB DOCX) and submit attachment via email to Tim Reader at tim.reader@colostate.edu.
  2. Schedule and participate in an onsite technical and financial review with CSFS Business Loan Fund staff
  3. Prepare and submit all required application materials to CSFS and its contracted lending partners

Successful Candidates Should Demonstrate

  1. Ability to meet the legislative intent
  2. Technical and financial merit
  3. Business operational history
  4. Ability to retain or create jobs
  5. Rural community economic stability
Colorado wood products

Partners

Upper Arkansas Area Council of Governments
San Luis Valley Resources Development Group
Region 9 Economic Development

Statewide Assistance

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