Colorado Strategic Wildfire Action Program
The Colorado Strategic Wildfire Action Program (COSWAP), administered by the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, was established in 2021 through bipartisan legislation (Senate Bill 21‑258) following the record-setting 2020 wildfire season. COSWAP’s mission is to mitigate wildfire risk in the wildland–urban interface by accelerating forest restoration, protecting watersheds and infrastructure, and enhancing community resilience to climate-driven hazards.
COSWAP advances this mission through two core components: workforce development and landscape resilience investments. The Workforce Development Grant Program supports the expansion of forest management capacity by engaging the state’s youth conservation corps, the Department of Corrections’ State Wildland Inmate Fire Team (SWIFT), and independent conservation crews to implement forest management projects across the state. It aims to build the hazard mitigation and forestry workforce in the state while also completing wildfire mitigation projects identified by grantees.
The Landscape Resilience Investment Grant Program funds projects focused on fuel reduction and ecological restoration. These activities include mechanical thinning of overgrown forests, removal of hazardous fuels, creation of defensible space near residential areas, and prescribed burning. Projects are concentrated in ten priority landscapes, such as Boulder, Jefferson, and La Plata counties, and are designed to support collaboration among municipalities, watershed coalitions, and land management agencies. These priority landscapes were identified under requirements from Senate Bill 21-258 as the “most strategic landscapes in the state for wildfire mitigation and fuel reduction projects.”
To evaluate treatment effectiveness and ecological outcomes, COSWAP partners with the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute (CFRI) at Colorado State University. Using standardized field plots and remote sensing, CFRI monitors changes in vegetation structure, canopy density, and fire behavior potential over time. This data-driven approach enables the program to track hazard reduction, promote adaptive management, and ensure that interventions improve forest health and reduce wildfire severity at a landscape scale.
Publication Date: July 7, 2021
Related Organizations:
- Colorado Department of Natural Resources
- State of Colorado
Sectors:
Resource Category:
Resource Types:
- Funding program
States Affected:
Impacts:
- Wildfires
