The Forest Health Committee has been quite active since the beginning of 2011. We have hosted a series of educational opportunities about our forests, pine beetles and mountain living. Members of our group have been working in conjunction with Camp Eden, the Fire Department and Jefferson County to host annual ‘Slash Days’ to collect slash (tree tops, branches, limbs, etc.)
We also launched a new version of Coal Creek Canyon’s Firewood Project’ that we call ‘Saws & Slaws‘. At the monthly events, we work for about four hours (i.e. Saws) then share a meal together (i.e. Slaws!). We use this tool to engage neighbors to help neighbors with their forest health and fire mitigation work in order to make our shared forest healthier and our community safer. For this project, we get significant support from Boulder County. If you would like to find out more information about upcoming events and programs, please visit the Saws & Slaws website.
In the Summer of 2014, we launched a new program where we are working on figuring out how to do bigger forest health and fire mitigation projects. Based on our Community Wildfire Protection Plan (download it here), we are targeting areas that need help that is bigger than we can offer through individual Saws & Slaws events. In order to get this work done effectively and efficiently, we need to hire professionals. We were awarded our first grant and began a Camp Eden Community Egress Project this summer. Click on this link to find out more.