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National Forest Foundation outlines Upper Arkansas Forest Fund, asks county to release deferred $450,000 for fuels work
Summary
The National Forest Foundation presented the Upper Arkansas Forest Fund’s progress in Chaffee County, describing roughly $11.7 million raised to date, project pipelines on priority private and state parcels, and a request that the county release a $450,000 deferred Common Ground payment to accelerate high‑priority fuels treatments.
The National Forest Foundation asked Chaffee County commissioners on Tuesday to approve release of a $450,000 deferred Chaffee Common Ground payment to fund additional fuels‑reduction work through the Upper Arkansas Forest Fund.
Sam Pankratz, Rocky Mountain region program manager for the National Forest Foundation, told the board the fund is a pooled financing mechanism that “mix[es] and match[es] a variety of different funds” to speed implementation of priority wildfire treatments across federal, state and private ownerships in the Upper Arkansas watershed.
The request is tied to the NFF’s work implementing the Chaffee County Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP). “Within the Chaffee County Community Wildfire Protection Plan, there is 30,000 acres of priority treatments identified. Ten thousand of those acres were identified on private land,” Pankratz said. He said the fund has mobilized partners and projects to address those priorities and is roughly 25 percent of the way toward the fund’s acreage commitments in the county.
Why it matters: NFF staff said pooled funding reduces…
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