Reimagining Community Wildfire Protection Planning in Nederland, Colorado
As the risk of catastrophic wildfires continues to increase, being future-ready on a community-wide scale will be crucial for the safety and wellbeing of the small mountain town of Nederland, Colorado.
In the context of the Boulder Watershed Collective’s ongoing community resilience work, this project focused on facilitating an inclusive Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) process. Nederland’s CWPP (2011) was previously developed by a small group of decision-makers in collaboration with a consulting firm. At the time this CWPP was drafted, community input was less prioritized, and the respondent pool was not an accurate representation of Nederland’s diverse population.
Through 2022-2023, this team facilitated robust community engagement to ensure that updates to Nederland’s CWPP represent an inclusive, multi-stakeholder process, leading to diversified and more effective wildfire risk management capacities. Specifically, the project engaged with the lived experiences and perspectives of teens and young adults, older adults, Indigenous people, and unhoused people.
In Phase I of this project (June–December 2022), a student-led team from the University of Colorado Boulder worked with the Boulder Watershed Collective, the Nederland Fire Protection District, and the town of Nederland, Colorado, to facilitate community-wide insights and priorities to inform an update of Nederland’s CWPP. Learn about the research process and key findings from this story map.
In Phase II of this project (January–June 2023), the Boulder Watershed Collective (BWC) built on the Phase I research findings and recommendations to deliver an inclusive CWPP outcome for the town of Nederland. The Living with Fire Design Challenge grant also enabled the local fire protection district to allocate seed capital for acting on community-led priorities, including the development of wildfire risk management capacities and capabilities in inclusive and equitable ways. Learn more about the project’s sustained outcomes and future directions here.
