November 2025 marked an important milestone for prescribed fire across Northern Colorado. In partnership with local fire districts, land managers, and regional collaborators, three prescribed fires were successfully implemented using broadcast burning—demonstrating what’s possible when planning, training, and partnership come together on the landscape.

Colorado Forest Restoration Institute (CFRI), a key partner of the NoCo Fireshed, recently released a study showing that areas with prior forest treatments, like thinning, prescribed fire, or previous wildfire, burned less severely than in untreated areas during the wildfires in 2020.

Clear Creek County has not experienced disturbance in the form of wildfire in over a hundred years. As Forest and Mitigation Manager for the Clear Creek Watershed & Forest Health Partnership, Kelby is working to change that trajectory.

Last week, members of the Northern Colorado Fireshed Collaborative helped lead congressional staffers on a field trip to the Clear Creek and Boulder Ranger Districts within the Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forests. The multi-day tour touched on many issues that impact public and private lands within the Fireshed boundary, including the Wildfire Crisis Strategy, recreation, prescribed fire, Farm Bill housing authority, the Great American Outdoors Act and mixed land-use issues.