Wildland Fire Conference on Tap in FoCo!
This year’s Colorado Wildland Fire Conference is sold out with over 300 registrants and 36 exhibitor spaces. After many long months of planning, the 2023 Conference planning team is bringing the largest Colorado Wildland Fire Conference in state history, to Fort Collins, Colorado, April 10th-14th. Connecting to Colorado’s Network for Wildfire Resilience, as well as other collaborative networks, creates positive change and facilitates better outcomes as we adapt to wildfires in Colorado.
The Fire Adapted Colorado network offers our members a space to connect, and to leverage our connections, as well as our collective knowledge together. One of our favorite ways to connect with other practitioners is through the face-to-face interaction and educational opportunities offered at the Colorado Wildland Fire Conference. The CWFC is held once every eighteen months and moves throughout Colorado. It is the cornerstone event of our state-wide network, made possible through the dedication and financial support of our sponsors, our state and federal partners, and many of the placed-based practitioners in our network.
The first Colorado Wildland Fire Conference (CWFC) was in Lakewood, Colorado, in 1997. A small group of local, county, and state fire service personnel saw the need to develop a first-of-its-kind CWFC. The purpose of the CWFC was to educate, train, and better prepare those involved with the planning, mitigation, and operations in the wildland-urban interface. The organizing committee for that inaugural event represented West Metro Fire and Rescue, Evergreen Volunteer Fire Department, Indian Hills Fire Protection District, Boulder City Fire Department, Jefferson County, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department, Colorado State Forest Service and Colorado Department of Local Affairs.
The CWFC continued for about ten years, at which time there was a brief hiatus until the conference resumed again in 2014. Today, the CWFC emphasizes the concept of Fire Adapted Communities and seeks to involve all stakeholders that play a role in increasing resiliency in communities at risk from wildfire. Fire Adapted Colorado (FACO) became the fiscal agent and managing entity for the CWFC in 2015. The CWFC was successfully held online for the first time in 2020 to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, and it returned live in Grand Junction in September 2021.
In addition to hosting the Colorado Wildland Fire Conference, FACO offers educational and learning opportunities, including working with our network partners to support training opportunities such as USFS and COCO’s Community Wildfire Mitigation Best Practices, Building Fire Adapted Communities Neighbor Ambassador Programs, NFPA’s Assessing Structure Ignition Potential training; as well as discussions around Prescribed Fire , Proposed Legislation, Rapid Detection, Smoke Awareness, Community Engagement and many other topics. We’ve updated our communications strategy, re-designed our website, and included additional member resources. Fire Adapted Colorado is looking forward to listening to your needs and assisting your agency or organization in finding solutions to the complex issues we face. You can share your stories, successes and challenges with us by contributing your news and articles to our website news section, and by updating your organizations information in our Members Directory – Fire Adapted Colorado
