NoCo Fireshed Invests Over $600,000 in Local Forest Resilience Projects
Press Release
The Northern Colorado Fireshed Collaborative (NoCo Fireshed) announces the recipients of the latest round of its Fireshed Fund, giving over $600,000 to five local community partners working to increase the resiliency of forests in northern Colorado. This round of the Fireshed Fund was made possible through a public-private partnership between Xcel Energy and the National Forest Foundation contributing $200,000; with The Nature Conservancy contributing the additional funds to advance prescribed fire northern Colorado.
Since 2023, The Northern Colorado Fireshed Fund, in partnership with the National Forest Foundation, has awarded over $3 million to support community-led wildfire resiliency work in landscapes across Northern Colorado. This round of the Fireshed Fund predominantly supports implementation of forest resiliency projects, building on past funding rounds that contributed to capacity, planning, and community outreach that ready these areas for implementation.
This round of funding supports eight projects across four counties in Colorado: Jefferson, Boulder, Gilpin, and Larimer counties. Individual grants from the Fireshed Fund range from $40,000 to $160,000 and leverage additional federal, state, and private funds for forest resiliency work. Projects supported range from pile burning on private property to forest resiliency projects directly adjacent to electrical powerlines.
“Our partnership with the National Forest Foundation and the Northern Colorado Fireshed Collaborative will help us protect our communities, customers, electrical system and forested land from wildfire devastation. The NoCo Fireshed brought expertise that helped us identify and evaluate high-impact projects that align with our priorities—something we couldn’t achieve on our own. The NoCo Fireshed helped make the process easy, increasing the impact of our investment.” – Steve Roalstad, Xcel Energy
The Fireshed Fund utilizes a collaboratively developed spatial strategy to align community-led projects with treatments on Forest Service lands in high-priority areas. Since wildfires in the Western U.S. burn across geographic boundaries, this approach ensures the creation of contiguous treatment areas that are more effective at protecting both forest health and promoting community safety than stand-alone individual treatments.
To date, the NoCo Fireshed and its partners have implemented over 67,000 acres of wildfire resilience treatments across Northern Colorado. Studies show that, when treatments occur in our priority areas, our treatments more than double their impact for communities in the WUI (Wildland Urban Interface).
The use of prescribed fire continues to be a main tenet of the NoCo Fireshed’s mission. Prescribed burn treatments within the NoCo Fireshed area have resulted in over 8x more wildfire risk reduced per acre than thinning-alone. Funding from The Nature Conservancy directly supports six prescribed fire projects in the area helping to advance increased use of prescribed fire in northern Colorado.
2026 Fireshed Fund Recipients:
Organization: Clear Creek Watershed & Forest Health Partnership
Project: Rilliet Park Association Forest Restoration
Location: Jefferson County
Amount: $160,400
Funder: Xcel Energy
Organization: The Ember Alliance
Project: Private Land Pile Burning in the Poudre Watershed
Location: Larimer County
Amount: $157,000
Funder: The Nature Conservancy
Organization: Boulder Watershed Collective
Project: Sugarloaf Community Roadside Treatment
Location: Boulder County
Amount: $39,600
Funder: Xcel Energy
Organization: Peaks to People
Project: Private Land Pile Burning and Capacity Support
Location: Larimer County
Amount: $29,385
Funder: The Nature Conservancy
Organization: Boulder Watershed Collective
Project: Social Science/Certified Burner Pathway Project
Location: Boulder County
Amount: $49,270
Funder: The Nature Conservancy
Organization: Four Mile Protection District - Boulder West Wildfire Authority
Projects: Private Land Pile Burning and Forest Restoration
Location: Boulder County
Amount: $107,600
Funder: The Nature Conservancy
Organization: Clear Creek Watershed & Forest Health Partnership
Project: Gilpin County Fairgrounds Pile Burning and Outreach
Location: Gilpin County
Amount: $65,160
Funder: The Nature Conservancy
About the NoCo Fireshed: The Northern Colorado Fireshed Collaborative (NCFC) is a large network of individuals and organizations working across boundaries and jurisdictions to increase the pace and scale of prescribed fire and forest treatments in Northern Colorado to make our forests resilient, protect communities, and keep our water supplies reliable. Wildfires that burn into areas that have experienced prescribed burning typically cause less damage, are easier to control, and are safer for firefighters.
About Xcel Energy: Xcel Energy (NASDAQ: XEL) is a leading energy provider, dedicated to serving millions of customers with excellence. We make energy work better for customers, helping them thrive every day. That means always raising the bar — delivering better service and providing more reliable, resilient and sustainable energy.
About The Nature Conservancy: The Nature Conservancy is a global conservation organization dedicated to conserving the lands and waters on which all life depends. Guided by science, we create innovative, on-the-ground solutions to our world’s toughest challenges so that nature and people can thrive together. We are tackling climate change, conserving lands, waters and oceans at an unprecedented scale, providing food and water sustainably and helping make cities more resilient. The Nature Conservancy is working to make a lasting difference around the world in 86 countries and territories (41 by direct conservation impact and 45 through partners) through a collaborative approach that engages local communities, governments, the private sector, and other partners. For more news, visit our newsroom or follow The Nature Conservancy on LinkedIn.
About the National Forest Foundation: The National Forest Foundation is the official nonprofit partner of the US Forest Service. The NFF is national in scale and local in practice, with work focused in three vital areas: wildfire risk reduction, land and watershed restoration, and recreation for all. As a leader in forest conservation, the Foundation deploys 90% of its expenses towards projects and programs across the country’s 193-million-acre National Forest System. Learn more at www.nationalforests.org