I represent Colorado\u2019s 3rd District, home to some of the most fire-prone land in the country and four national parks. I\u2019m proud to co-sponsor the \u201cFix Our Forests Act,\u201d a call to action that gives us a real shot at doing what we should have done long ago: manage our forests before they\u2019re gone.<\/p>\n
The root of the problem isn\u2019t a mystery. Colorado is a dry state, and that\u2019s not changing anytime soon. But drought alone doesn\u2019t start megafires. It\u2019s the decades of overgrown underbrush, deadfall and beetle-eaten trees \u2013 all waiting to ignite. This dangerous fuel load is a direct result of letting basic forest management fall by the wayside. The conditions are clear, and so are the consequences. Every year we wait, the next fire season grows more expensive and more devastating.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s exactly what the \u201cFix Our Forests Act\u201d addresses. The bill outlines a series of smart, straightforward reforms. For example, it allows the forest service to designate high-risk \u201cfiresheds\u201d as priority areas for treatment. That single change opens the door for faster implementation of controlled burns, mechanical thinning and other proven mitigation strategies. These are tools that professionals are ready to use, but often can\u2019t because they\u2019re tangled in environmental review processes that were never meant to block urgent wildfire prevention.<\/p>\n
The bill also aims to strengthen regional and local partnerships. States, counties, tribes and conservation districts are given more flexibility to coordinate directly with federal agencies and get boots on the ground faster. Many of these communities already have forest health plans in place but require federal support to scale those efforts. By creating clearer pathways for shared stewardship and resource sharing, management decisions are brought closer to the people who know the land best.<\/p>\n
Protecting our forests starts with managing them. The economic toll of wildfires on Colorado\u2019s rural communities is hard to overstate. When a major fire strikes, the damage doesn\u2019t end with charred trees \u2013 it ripples across local economies. In 2018, the 416 Fire cost an estimated $40 million in damages \u2013 without destroying a single building. It burned 55,000 acres of the San Juan National Forest north of Durango and devastated local businesses through lost tourism.<\/p>\n
The cost of fighting wildfires continues to rise year after year. By investing in forest prevention up front, long-term costs can be significantly reduced, and the livelihoods of rural communities that depend on healthy forests are protected. If we want to preserve Colorado\u2019s mountain landscapes, we need to implement forest policy that enables action.<\/p>\n
To me, this is far beyond politics. It\u2019s about the family that\u2019s been evacuated for the third year in a row. It\u2019s about the firefighter who risks his life every season because the work that could\u2019ve made his job safer never got done. These are livelihoods and communities that have suffered irreparable damage \u2013 damage that could have been prevented if action had been taken.<\/p>\n
And we know that active management works. In areas where forests have been responsibly treated, fires burn slower and with less intensity. Working together can even prevent those fires entirely. Homes and watersheds are better protected. Lives are saved. To be very clear \u2013 we need to fix our forests, before they burn again.<\/p>\n
Rep. Jeff Hurd represents the 3rd District of Colorado in the U.S. House of Representatives. Reach him or a staff member at hurd.house.gov\/contact. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" forests are burning. And Washington can\u2019t keep standing by, stuck in process and politics, while homes go up in smoke. Over the past decade, we\u2019ve watched catastrophic wildfires sweep across the West \u2013 destroying communities, public lands and wildlife habitats. Rep. Jeff Hurdcca I represent Colorado\u2019s 3rd District, home to some of the most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[125],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-22372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-newsletter-opinion"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22372"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=22372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}