Fall 2023 Forest Program Update
Using the Upper Poudre Watershed Resilience Plan as a guide, as well as landscape-scale planning efforts through the Northern Colorado Fireshed Collaborative, we focus our forestry projects in high priority sub-drainages that are in most need of forest restoration work to prevent the negative impacts to our communities, water supplies, and ecosystems from catastrophic wildfire.
This important work could not be accomplished without collaboration and partnerships, which is why we work closely with government agencies, non-profits, local landowners and community groups to increase resilience and reduce wildfire risk across the Upper Poudre Watershed.
Fall 2023 Forest Program Highlights
The Larimer County Conservation Corps' Red Feather Forestry Crew (Photo credit: Larimer County Conservation Corps)
The Larimer County Conservation Corps (LCCC) finished up their 8th season cutting and piling slash on the Ben Delatour Scout Ranch, completing another 14 acres with Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) funding through the Colorado Youth Corps Association. This season's treatment area integrates with the US Forest Service's Magic Feather broadcast prescribed fire project, thinning fuels in an overly dense area on the private Scout Ranch property in order to facilitate effective USFS use of prescribed fire on both federal and private lands.
Cory Dick, CPRW Watershed Project Manager, assists with post-treatment monitoring at Swanson Ranch near Red Feather Lakes, CO.
The Swanson Ranch Forest Restoration project, located on private family ranch lands near Red Feather Lakes, completed 200 acres of fully mechanized forest restoration using whole tree removal. This project was a partnership between the Larimer Conservation District and CPRW, pairing NRCS Environmental Quality Incentives Fund dollars through LCD, with a Colorado State Forest Service Forest Restoration and Wildfire Risk MItigation grant through CPRW, and collaborating on landowner recruitment, project management, treatment monitoring, and outreach.
Slash piles curing at the W.O.L.F. Sanctuary.
The Ember Alliance crew resumed their work on the W.O.L.F. Sanctuary Wildfire Mitigation project, where they will complete a 38 acre cut and pile project this fall, led by CPRW. This project brings together three local nonprofits (CPRW, TEA, and the W.O.L.F. Sanctuary) to mitigate wildfire risk, protect infrastructure, and deepen the watershed benefits to the greater Elkhorn Creek area that CPRW and partners have been working toward since 2015. This work is funded by CPRW's Community Assistance Funds Adjacent to National Forests and Grasslands grant, administered through Colorado State Forest Service (CSFS).
For questions about our Forests Program please email Daniel Bowker, Forests Program Manager, at daniel@poudrewatershed.org.