Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Wildfire Resilience topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Resident urges acreage targets for prescribed burns; city staff says landscape burn plan and dashboard are underway
Summary
A resident asked the Open Space Board for clear acreage goals and public tracking for prescribed burns; staff said prescribed burns occur annually on agricultural land, a landscape-scale burn plan is being developed, and a public dashboard for wildfire resilience is in progress.
Jan Burton, speaking during public comment at the Oct. 8 meeting, urged the board to adopt explicit acreage targets and public tracking for prescribed burns across Open Space lands.
“I saw in the Boulder Daily Camera that the city is doing a controlled burn south of El Dorado Springs and west of 93… I really like that as a resident,” Burton said, and asked whether the city could adopt a target program (for example, a five‑year plan) showing how many acres would be treated each year and how the work would be funded.
OSMP staff and trustees responded in the meeting. Dan (OSMP staff) said the city is developing a community dashboard to track wildfire-resilience work, including prescribed burns, and that OSMP has implemented prescribed burns annually on agricultural lands. He said the last landscape‑scale burn was about five years ago and that landscape-level prescribed burn plans typically take roughly 18 months to prepare for a 2,000–3,000‑acre unit. The Flatirons Vista burn plan includes the unit planned south of El Dorado Springs, he said.
Burton noted similar planning at Boulder County (a five‑year target and acreage goals); she said she could not find explicit line-item funding for fuel mitigation or prescribed burning in the city budget and asked the board to provide cost estimates and a way to track progress publicly.
Trustees said they are working on improved metrics and public reporting; staff said the dashboard and mapping projects underway should meet many of the resident’s requests once completed.
