Healthy Forests Vibrant Communities Report – 2025
2025 Healthy Forests and Vibrant Communities Report
Since 2009, the Colorado General Assembly has supported proactive efforts to enhance the health of Colorado’s forests with a variety of legislative bills, beginning with House Bill 09-119, in support of the Healthy Forests and Vibrant Communities Act. The purpose of this act is to increase the capacity of the Colorado State Forest Service 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 Healthy Forests and Vibrant Communities Act advances the ability for the CSFS to engage in the following activities:
- Implement forest management and fuels reduction projects
- Reduce wildfire risk to life, property and watersheds
- Assist communities and others to develop Community Wildfire Protection Plans
- Support utilization and marketing of wood products
- Provide loans to forest products businesses
- Develop and update a public website with geospatial data to assist with assessing wildfire risk and project planning
Message from Director Matt McCombs
In 2025, the Colorado State Forest Service advanced a modern vision of forest stewardship, one that meets wildfire risk, forest health and community resilience head-on. With support from the Healthy Forests and Vibrant Communities Act, CSFS staff helped communities prepare for wildfire, strengthened Colorado’s wood utilization economy and delivered trusted technical expertise statewide. This integrated, multi-pronged approach is essential to sustaining resilient forests and watersheds for generations to come.
2025 Accomplishments
Community Wildfire Protection Plans (CWPP)
HFVC funds continue to be used to support CWPP development in select communities that were unsuccessful competing for federal funding meant for the same purpose. Some of these plans are now complete, making the communities eligible for funding intended to support implementation efforts outlined in the CWPPs.
- 14 new CWPPs
- 10 updated CWPPs
- 279 total CWPPs in Colorado
Firewise USA®
Firewise USA® is a program developed by the National Fire Protection Association and administered in Colorado by the CSFS. It promotes wildfire risk reduction planning, education, investment and action and is delivered at the local neighborhood level. In 2025, we added 25 sites, and we now have 275 in Colorado in good standing.
Each year, the Colorado State Forest Service provides information to the Colorado General Assembly and the general public about the health and condition of forests across Colorado, as well as the progress made in addressing critical forest health issues in our state. Read the 2024 Report on the Health of Colorado’s Forests.
Fuels and Forest Health Projects Funded by Healthy Forests and Vibrant Communities in 2023
All available HFVC funds for forest restoration and wildfire mitigation projects were awarded in previous years. Of the nine projects funded in the past three years, there are currently six in progress and three completed that have treated 1,500.7 acres.
| Project name | County | Funds awarded | Matching funds | Acres planned | Reported acres completed | Status 12/2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fraser Valley Community & Watershed Protection, Pole Creek Preserve HOA | Grand | $100,000 | $100,000 | 120 | 79.7 | In progress |
| Quartz Creek Community Fuelbreak Project | Gunnison | $207,515 | $158,000 | 68 | 68 | Complete |
| Snowshoe Wildfire Mitigation & Forest Health Project | Jefferson | $87,675 | $87,675 | 100 | 56 | In progress |
| State Forest Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change Project | Jackson | $250,000 | $250,000 | 300 | 81 | In progress |
| Cherokee Park Landscape Scale Fuels Reduction & Forest Management Project | Larimer | $515,325 | $515,325 | 206 | 0 | In progress |
| Taylor Park Fuels Management | Gunnison | $1,000,000 | $200,000 | 400 | 0 | In progress |
| Fraser Valley Community & Watershed Protection | Grand | $1,000,000 | TBD | 500 | 1,005 | Complete |
| Greater Staunton Project | Jefferson and Park | $1,000,000 | TBD | 578 | 73 | Complete |
| North Cat 1 GNA & Big Blue COSU | Teller | $1,000,000 | TBD | 435 | 138 | In progress |
| TOTAL: | $5,160,515 | $1,311,000 | 1,500.7 | |||
Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change
The Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change project (ASCC) is a collaborative effort to establish a series of experimental silvicultural trials across a network of different forest ecosystem types throughout the United States and Canada, including a site on the Colorado State Forest. This overall project area is 400 acres in size and includes a control area and three separate treatment types of 100 acres tailored to meet the respective goals of 1) resistance, 2) resilience and 3) transition (RRT).
Treatment has occurred in roughly half of the project area, with full completion expected by the end of this winter. Tree planting of climate-adapted species in the resilience and transition will occur two years post-treatment. Monitoring of research plots will be long term. Results of this study will have practical application in guiding forest management locally, and throughout the Central and Southern Rockies in the context of a changing climate.
Spruce-fir forests are the second largest forest-type by land area in Colorado and comprise the highest points of many of our most important watersheds. While these forests provide critical ecosystem services, relatively little applied management literature exists as to what constitutes RRT within these systems. This ASCC project aims to provide applied management knowledge regarding how to best prepare these forests for the future. The impetus of the ASCC project is to advance knowledge in managing subalpine forests in a changing climate through experimentation and collaboration.
Outreach
Assessing Structure Ignition Potential (ASIP) trainings
- 4 sessions: Walsenburg, Arvada, Avon and Montrose
- 118 students trained
Wildfire mitigation guides
- Distributed 9,913 Home Ignition Zone guides
- Distributed 1,484 Spanish language Home Ignition Zone guides
- Distributed 2,349 Low-Flammability Landscape Plants Fact Sheet 6.305
- Updated and renamed to Ignition-Resistant Landscape Plants
- Distributed 725 copies of updated publication
- Updated, printed and renamed Fire-Resistant Landscaping to Fire-Adapted Landscaping Practices Fact Sheet 6.303
- Distributed 1,060 copies of updated publications
Live Wildfire Ready
In 2025, the CSFS and a steering committee of partners continued the Live Wildfire Ready campaign to raise awareness among Colorado residents to be prepared for wildfire and inform them on what they can do to mitigate wildfire risk to their life, home and property.
In its third year, the Live Wildfire Ready campaign continued sharing a video that expanded the reach of the campaign to screens across Colorado, from TVs to movie theaters to personal devices.
- The campaign has garnered more than 27.6 million impressions across a diversity of tools since its inception in May of 2023, including 9.5 million in 2025.
- Nearly all campaign materials directed people to LiveWildfireReady.org, which offers valuable information on wildfire risk, actions to take and resources to explore; the website earned more than 16,000 pageviews in 2025.
The CSFS set up an easy-to-use form for partners across the state to use to request outreach materials to promote Live Wildfire Ready. Since it went live on April 23, 2024, the CSFS fulfilled 117 orders for 55,277 outreach items.
CSFS.colostate.edu
The CSFS website continues to be a valuable forestry resource for Colorado residents. Throughout 2025, the website hosted 262,000 active users.
Woody biomass utilization, consumption and production in Colorado
Woody Biomass in Colorado: Quantification, Assessment and Opportunities characterizes and quantifies wood biomass resources across the state using USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data. It also evaluates harvesting, transportation and delivery systems; utilization and markets in Colorado; biomass production technologies; the social, economic and environmental considerations associated with utilization; and provides next steps and policy recommendations. The assessment will be used as a decision support tool for policymakers, investors and biomass utilizing businesses. We will provide outreach on this new resource in 2026.
Carbon accounting framework
In 2025, the CSFS responded to growing media interest on the Forest Carbon Inventory and delivered presentations to county collaborators, multi-state partners and research institutions. Staff also secured U.S. Climate Alliance technical assistance funding for a multi-state effort to document and further develop the code needed to operate the framework and support future inventory updates. In addition, the CSFS received IIJA funding in partnership with CSU researchers and the USFS to support a multi-faceted project integrating forest economics and governance, and it supports the development of the carbon co-benefit framework. This funding enabled the hiring of a student intern who conducted literature reviews of relevant carbon market methodologies and empirical research to inform early considerations of how forest management may impact carbon persistence and sequestration.
Monitoring for adaptive management
The CSFS monitoring crew visited 172 pre- and post-treatment monitoring plots representing 1720 acres on projects funded by Forest Restoration and Wildfire Risk Mitigation, Colorado Strategic Wildfire Action Program, Colorado Water Conservation Board and Healthy Forests and Vibrant Communities.
Monitoring program staff continue to engage with partners on monitoring questions around impacts of forestry treatments on snow water equivalent at the Colorado State Forest. The monitoring staff deployed a LiDAR drone platform (DJI Matrice 350 with Zenmuse L2 sensor) to the snow course project as well as FRWRM projects and will begin analysis on characterizing forest structure. The monitoring team continues work at the Manitou Experimental Forest to fly the LiDAR drone at different altitudes to assess tradeoffs between detail gained and flight-time efficiency and will develop a publication.
The CSFS also successfully hired a new monitoring program crew leader to lead a second monitoring crew during the 2026 field season. This represents a significant expansion of the monitoring program and will yield the ability to conduct more work during the field seasons. The CSFS partnered with both the Warner College of Natural Resources and AmeriCorps to subsidize monitoring field crew costs throughout field season 2026.
The Colorado Forest Health Council is a volunteer stakeholder body whose role is to provide a collaborative forum to advise the Governor, through the Executive Director of the Department of Natural Resources and the Colorado General Assembly, on issues, opportunities and threats to Colorado’s forests. The Council was reestablished during the Colorado 2021 Legislative Session with 26 members representing all corners of Colorado. The Council’s updated mission includes improving forest health in Colorado through integrated, science-based approaches, with a focus on cross-jurisdictional collaboration among federal, state and local governments, as well as private and nonprofit partners to reduce wildfire risk, restore ecological resilience, safeguard communities and water supplies, mitigate and adapt to climate change, support local economies, and protect recreation areas.
In October 2025, the Council approved the final version of the 30-Year Vision, a statutory duty of the Council. To complete this task, the Council used HFVC funding to support the facilitator, who provided the necessary tools to develop and approve the 30-year vision that includes goals and annual and multi-year recommendations for actions to improve forest health and reduce fire risk through increased funding and capacity building.
Lending activity from our Wildfire Risk Mitigation Revolving Loan Fund decreased in 2025. A higher percentage of lending clients fell behind in their repayment obligations. Industry expressed concern over declines in demand for their products resulting in reduced cash flow, increasing costs from tariffs and uncertainty related to availability of federal grant mitigation and biomass utilization grant programs.
Program specialists participated in the planning and hosting of the 2025 CWSF Ponderosa Pine Utilization Summit in Flagstaff, Arizona.
CSFS staff support to the USDA Wood Innovations Grant and Hazardous Fuels Transportation Assistance Programs resulted in $3 million in awards to forest products businesses and organizations.
The CSFS competed successfully for a 2025 USDA Temporary Bridge program to allow the CSFS to purchase and provide temporary bridge structures and materials to timber harvesting contractors. Bridge procurement and rentals are anticipated for 2026.
The CSFS provided ongoing technical assistance and guidance to several counties engaging in strategic biomass supply and utilization and biomass facility planning. Larimer, Douglas, Huerfano and Boulder counties are all utilizing guidance provided by CSFS biomass utilization and science and data staff to their biomass and hazardous fuels mitigation and facility planning efforts. Biomass specialists continued to provide formal guidance on biomass utilization to CSFS Forest Restoration and Wildfire Risk Mitigation (FRWRM) applicants. CSFS biomass specialists also worked with several new companies based on a carbon and climate mitigation business and carbon credit model producing bio-oils, biochar and other long-term carbon sequestration products. Specialists continue to sit on committees for collaboratives including the Colorado Mass Timber Coalition (CMTC) and Rocky Mountain Restoration Initiative (RMRI).
The Workforce Development Grant, established by SB 23-005, allows companies to apply for CSFS cost-share for hiring and training new employees in the industries of forest products manufacturing, timber harvesting and trucking, forestry and/or wildfire mitigation services. In 2025, 18 awards were made to 10 entities, spending the full award allocation of $75,000. The program has been well-received by awardees, and several have applied for more than one award.
Geospatial data and technology enhancements
In 2024, the CSFS Geospatial Data and Analysis program used HFVC funds to make several large technological enhancements to CSFS drone, field data collection and data processing capacity. In 2025, the program used HFVC funds to hire and retain Remote Sensing Specialist Andrew Whelan to manage CSFS drone resources and put our new technologies to use in forest monitoring, management and collaborative research projects.
The CSFS Geospatial Data and Analysis program, with Andy’s leadership, along with interagency and cross-divisional partners flew 20+ missions at various FRWRM, forest health, and CSFS forest management treatment projects sites, along with flights for USFS RMRS and Colorado State Forest snow course research project data collection missions.
Licensed CSFS pilots/foresters flights
- 18+ training and pilot readiness flights
- 20+ reconnaissance, public outreach or project accomplishment photography and videography missions
The CSFS Geospatial Data and Analysis program also took on the supervision of a CSU WCNR SUPER Student to provide real-world research experience to an undergraduate student from data collection to analysis. This student project focuses on testing and documenting methods for standing dead tree (snag) detection using drone-derived imagery and new algorithms that can both map and quantify snag locations and biomass on the landscape and comparing these methods to other available remote sensing datasets. This mentorship will continue into 2026 with outcomes including a comprehensive literature review, poster presentation and documentation of methods and analysis at a site of a CSFS forest management project.
Colorado Wildfire Risk Assessment and Colorado Forest Atlas
In 2025 the Colorado Forest Atlas portal, which includes the 2022 Colorado Wildfire Risk Assessment (CO-WRA) applications, produced the following metrics:
- 834 Wildfire Risk Reduction Planner unique user logins (1/1/2025-10/30/2025)
- 4,295 Total professional user accounts in the Colorado Forest Atlas (as of 10/30/2025)
- 206 CO-WRA risk reports generated (as of 10/30/2025)
- 464 Forest Atlas support contacts, including user requests, data support, and application support questions (as of 10/30/2025)
CSFS GIS Capacity Building and Support
The CSFS Geospatial Data and Analysis program in collaboration with the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute, both part of Colorado State University, released the Colorado Forest Tracker (CFT) in April 2025. The CFT is a new central database and reporting system that records completed forest management activities throughout Colorado. This new tool is the first of its kind in Colorado, delivering comprehensive information about forest management accomplishments to policymakers, foresters, land managers, firefighters, researchers and all Coloradans in one location. The CFT includes data across federal, state, local, and private lands. The CFT includes spatial and basic information for 25,000+ individual management activities accounting for 1.5 million acres of land across Colorado. Since the dataset was released, at least 900+ users have accessed the project website, data viewer or dataset.
The CSFS Geospatial Data and Analysis program has used HFVC funds for staff time and technical expertise dedicated to creating, hosting and maintaining private geospatial web applications for use by Colorado collaboratives, including the Northern Colorado Fireshed Collaborative and Upper South Platte Partnership. These applications are used by collaborative members to submit forest management project data and are used to plan and monitor projects across their partner agencies and priority landscapes. Much of the data is also integrated into the Colorado Forest Tracker.
Northern Colorado Fireshed Collaborative application metrics
- Total users: 45
- Total project data added or edited in 2025: 259
Upper South Platte Partnership application metrics
- Total users: 42
- Total project data added or edited in 2025: 135
The team supported the state-mandated Wildfire Resiliency Code Board by developing a state-wide WUI code classification data layer and hosting the data in a interactive application for public code visibility, education and enforcement.
The CSFS Geospatial Data and Analysis team created an internal CSFS GIS News and Communication page for CSFS staff with seven new training and data access documents as well as a monthly webinar training calendar that provided eight trainings, along with available video recordings, in 2025.
- Field maps, survey 123, collecting data with ESRI products
- A deep dive into data management
- Streaming data
- Geodatabases and shapefiles
- Working with slope data
- ArcGIS best practices
- Creating and editing features in ArcGIS Pro
- Remote sensing topics: What is the team doing with LiDAR data?
CSFS GIS team 2025 accomplishments
- Responded to 255 internal CSFS employee GIS support tickets
- Conducted seven new employee GIS onboardings
- Participated in, or presented at two conferences:
- Three staff attended the Colorado Forest Collaboratives Summit in Golden to interact with partners in watershed and fireshed collaboratives
- One staff presented at the 2025 CO-OIT GIS Summit in Parker
In 2025, the CSFS continued to expand capacity throughout the agency to provide project and program administration for the activities supported by the Healthy Forests and Vibrant Communities Act.
| Position | Description | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Wildfire Mitigation Program Specialist | Program specialist hired to fill a vacancy that provides oversight of Community Wildfire Protection Plan programs, Firewise USA ® and the Rural Grant Navigator program. Position also supports wildfire mitigation recommendations and publications. | 1 position filled in 2025 |
| Forest Monitoring Crew Leader | Monitoring program crew leader hired to expand and support field data collection for pre- and post-treatment monitoring. | 1 position filled in 2025 |
| Foresters, Supervisory and Lead Foresters and Forestry Technicians | Increased or maintained forester capacity at field offices across the state to meet the needs of federal and state partners and funding. | 7 positions filled or backfilled in 2025 |
| Manager of Program Delivery | Manager hired to expand capacity in the Forest Planning and Implementation division. The position will manage the Good Neighbor Authority program and supervise specialists responsible for GNA, watershed programs and multi-partner agreements. | 1 position to start in January 2026 |
| Nursery Manager | Position hired to fill a vacancy that manages operations and staff at the CSFS Nursery | 1 position to start in January 2026 |
Looking ahead
The CSFS will invest HFVC funds to address the emerging mountain pine beetle outbreak in 2026, including hiring temporary staff to respond to mountain pine beetle inquiries, promoting an outreach campaign and providing funds to the Department of Natural Resources for competitive grants through COSWAP.
Other plans for 2026 and beyond include creation of an online grant portal for state-funded grant programs such as Forest Restoration and Wildfire Risk Mitigation and updates to the Colorado Wildfire Risk Assessment. The CSFS will also continue to fill vacancies for cross-boundary project planning and implementation, CWPP support and field staff. A small amount of HFVC funds will support one-time expenses such as reporting software updates, forest health supplies and other needs.
Finally, the CSFS has committed to leveraging HFVC funds with potential federal investments from the U.S. Forest Service and Natural Resources Conservation Service. Discussions of an updated shared stewardship agreement between state and federal partners will provide a framework for investments.