Getting Matches Back in the Hands of Colorado Landowners

by Kristin Leger, Community Capacity Program Manager, The Ember Alliance

On Saturday, March 9, 2024, The Ember Alliance hosted a Pile Burn Workshop in coordination with the Heart J Center, the Big Thompson Watershed Coalition, Loveland Fire Rescue Authority, and the US Forest Service. This workshop was funded by The Nature Conservancy’s Fire Learning Network.

The goal of the day was simple – get community members together at the Heart J Center’s Cow Camp property near Storm Mountain and provide an opportunity for private landowners to burn slash piles in a safe and supportive environment.

Slash pile burning is an effective wildfire mitigation tool for people who live in Colorado’s Wildland Urban Interface (WUI). The Ember Alliance wants to empower more private landowners to work together to build and burn slash piles in their communities as a way to mitigate wildfire risk, enhance community protection, and restore forest and watershed health. Ultimately, The Ember Alliance hopes to facilitate the formation of Pile Burn Cooperatives (PBCs), which are groups of private landowners who feel empowered to safely and effectively burn slash piles, and help each other to do so by sharing resources, knowledge, and experience. The pile burn workshops are an important first step toward the PBC model because they provide a platform for private landowners to connect with each other, learn about tools and resources that are available to them around pile burning, and get hands-on experience building and burning slash piles. One resource that The Ember Alliance directs landowners to at these workshops is the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control (DFPC) Certified Burner B Program. Aside from gaining valuable training and experience in pile burning, completion of DFPC’s Certified Burner B Program provides landowners with civil liability protection.

As Jennifer Mueller, the CEO at The Ember Alliance says, “Prescribed fire is a team sport!” The more we can work together and support each other in returning fire to Colorado’s forests in a safe and responsible manner, the more we can move toward a healthy and resilient forest ecosystem, and ultimately toward a world where communities thrive with fire.