HCCA working for conservation in the Gunnison County Community Wildfire Prevention Plan

By Jon Hare, HCCA Advocacy Director

Since April 2024, High Country Conservation Advocates (HCCA) has been working with a group of local organizations to draft the updated Gunnison County Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP).

The CWPP represents the intersection of wildfire protection, fuels reduction, and vegetation management—to identify wildfire risks to our community and outline a plan to reduce those risks and enhance preparedness. On the ground, the CWPP identifies locations where vegetation management should be prioritized and where wildfire mitigation actions would be most beneficial and cost efficient in protecting our community from potential wildfires.

HCCA’s work on the Gunnison County CWPP helped to integrate important community conservation values and priorities into the planning process—land designations like Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) and protections like Wilderness areas; considerations for the value of fire in different habitat and vegetation types; collaborative work on location, size, and scope of vegetation management techniques like mechanical thinning, mastication, prescribed fire, and patch cuts;  inclusion of long-term local conservation efforts for species like Gunnison Sage-Grouse and critical big game habitat; and finally, coming up with priorities for values at risk from wildfire like human and firefighter safety, municipal water sources, infrastructure, buildings, recreational areas, and critical wildlife habitat.

I would like to encourage HCCA supporters to take a look at the draft CWPP on the Gunnison County website (https://gunnisoncounty.org/1104/Community-Wildfire-Protection-Plan) and submit any comments you may have or use your voice to support the document and the effort of the local community for collaborating on this plan, and recognize the CWPP for including conservation values.

You can submit your comments by the end of May 7th, 2025 at this link— https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=g8ZFJvzG00OybdB5p8ubx8OSA307KlFHpyProCLAJ4lUNTEwS1UwUDVPOFZJWERHS1hVWVIxMlQ3Ti4u&route=shorturl

Next up, we need to support the effort to implement the CWPP across Gunnison County in a manner that considers the largest threats our community faces from wildfires and addresses them in a strategic and prioritized fashion across the landscape.

HCCA’s conservation advocacy will continue with each project proposed by the CWPP. We can be supportive of on-the-ground work for wildfire mitigation as the CWPP is a playbook meant to focus on locations that will serve as strategic fuel breaks in the event of wildfire, and choose treatments based on the cost benefit for vegetation management projects in those areas.

Over to the east of Gunnison in Chaffee County, where they have had a few large (and threatening) wildfires in the past few years, there has been remarkable progress toward their wildfire protection goals through the Chaffee County CWPP.

Community wildfire protection involves a big group of landowners working across different jurisdictional boundaries to achieve a final goal—the Chaffee community has provided a strong example of how a community can come together to collaborate—in less than ten years Chaffee County has accomplished almost half the targets of their CWPP. If you are interested you can learn more here: Ensuring Healthy Landscapes - Envision Chaffee County

The next big project for Gunnison County is to make more progress towards ensuring healthy landscapes and further protect our communities from the impacts of wildfires. As you consider the Gunnison County CWPP – please remember HCCA has been working for conservation outcomes and will continue to be at the table advocating throughout the process. HCCA supports the Gunnison County CWPP, and anticipates positive results from the community engagement and wild fire preparedness that results from this wildfire prevention plan.  

July 2023 Lowline Fire