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Interim Committee on Wildfire Issues Holds Final
Meeting – Votes on Bills to be Carried by Committee
On September 15, 2008, the Legislative Interim
Committee on Wildfire Issues in Wildland Urban
Interface Areas held their sixth and final meeting.
The purpose of this meeting was to vote on which
bills the committee would advance as Interim
Committee Bills. The committee had a total of 11
bill topics under consideration (and has a limit of
8 bills it can recommend). These topics were
drafted into bills and the committee took up the
bills during this meeting.
Copies of the bills that were considered by the
Committee are posted below (without the amendments
that were adopted by the Committee).
Following is a summary of the bills considered by
the Interim Committee and their action on these
bills:
Bill #1 – WUI Fire Chain of Command
This bill would direct the Board of County
Commissioners (BOCC) to designate an emergency
response authority for wildland fires in the
jurisdiction. States that the emergency response
authority shall be the sheriff of a county shall be
emergency response authority of the county unless
otherwise designated by the county. This bill
requires an emergency response authority to create a
plan for the response to wildland fires that
includes a description of response capabilities and
tactics and the incident command structure. This
bill directs the board of county commissioners of
each county to develop and annually update a
wildfire preparedness plan for the unincorporated
area of the county, in coordination with each
emergency response authority and fire district with
jurisdiction over the unincorporated area of the
county.
This bill was amended to strike the reference to the
authority of the BOCC related to the funding of
wildfire response (the bill simply moved the
existing statutory language; but it became a source
of confusion. The bill as amended passed out of the
Committee. Senator Gibbs and Representative Scanlan
will be the Prime Sponsors.
Bill #2 – Immunity for Persons Engaged in Emergency
Response Activities
This bill provides civil immunity protection for
fire departments and other entities that donate
surplus fire equipment; for volunteer firefighters,
their commanders, and their sponsoring organization;
and for incident management teams.
The bill was passed out of the Committee. Senator
Gibbs and Representative Scanlan will be the Prime
Sponsors.
Bill #3 – Community Wildfire Protection Plans
This bill requires the state forester, in
collaboration with representatives of the USFS,
municipal and county governments, local fire
departments or fire protection districts, and state
and local law enforcement agencies, to establish
guidelines and criteria for counties to consider in
preparing community wildfire protection plans (CWPPs).
The bill requires the BOCC of each county to
determine whether there are fire hazard areas within
the unincorporated portion of the county. This bill
requires the BOCC, in collaboration with the
representatives of the organizations or entities
that participated in establishing the guidelines and
criteria, to prepare a CWPP to address wildfires in
fire hazard areas within the unincorporated portion
of the county.
This bill was amended to ‘grandfather’ counties that
already have a CWPP in place; to reduce to 90 days
the time granted to the state forester to develop
guidelines; and requiring the BOCC when preparing
the CWPP to consider and give weight to the
guidelines (instead of a strict mandate to follow
the guidelines). The bill as amended passed out of
the Committee. Senator Penry and Representative
Scanlan will be the Prime Sponsors.
Bill #4 – Unincorporated Area Fire Protection
Services
(Rep. Levy)
Among other things, this bill would have prohibited
a BOCC from approving a subdivision in an
unincorporated area of a county unless the
subdivider provides evidence that the subdivision
will be located within a fire protection district or
evidence that a fire department will provide fire
protection services for the subdivision. The bill
would also have prohibited the issuance of a
building permit for the construction of a new
commercial or residential building to be located in
an unincorporated area of a county unless the
building will be located within a fire protection
district or there is evidence that a fire department
will provide fire protection services for the
building. The bill also provided if a fire
department assists in controlling or extinguishing a
fire on property that is not covered by established
fire protection services, entitles the fire
department to reimbursement from the property owner
on whose property the fire occurred.
This bill did not pass out of committee. Some
members felt the bill was too far-reaching as it
relates to private property rights.
Bill #5 – Fire Department Definition (Sen. Schwartz)
The primary purpose of this bill was to link to the
bill for fire protection in unincorporated areas
outside of fire protection districts (Bill #4).
This bill defines what constitutes a fire
department. The bill also would have required that
non-governmental volunteer fire departments would
need permission from the governmental authority
having jurisdiction (BOCC for areas outside of fire
protection districts and Fire Protection District
Board of Directors for areas within a fire
protection district) to operate as a fire
department.
This bill did not pass out of committee.
Bill #6 – Incentives for Volunteer Firefighters
This bill creates a fund in the Division of Fire
Safety to make grants to qualified volunteer
firefighters to cover the costs of training in
fighting fires in wildland-urban interface areas.
The bill directs the Division to collaborate with
the State Board for Community Colleges and
Occupational Education to develop a system to
provide tuition vouchers to qualified volunteer
firefighters. The bill allows qualified volunteer
firefighters to claim a tax rebate for reimbursement
of the costs of firefighting equipment.
This bill was amended to allow the Division to
grants to qualified volunteer fire departments to
cover the costs of training in fighting fires in
wildland-urban interface areas. The bill was also
amended to allow volunteer firefighters who are
part-time students to also be eligible for tuition
assistance. The bill as amended passed out of the
Committee. Senator Kopp and Representative Scanlan
will be the Prime Sponsors.
Bill #7 – Fund Voluntary Fire Service Training
Program
(Sen. Schwartz)
The bill sought to allocate a portion of insurance
premium tax revenues to the fire service education
and training fund in the Division of Fire Safety for
the purpose of funding statewide voluntary fire
service education and training programs. The bill
would have required the director, with the
assistance of the fire service training and
certification advisory board, to develop criteria
for prioritizing the development and administration
of voluntary fire service education and training
programs in those counties demonstrating the
greatest need.
The bill was amended to strike all of the criteria
for determining need; leaving the need determination
up to the director and advisory board. However, the
bill failed to pass the committee.
Bill #8 – Wildland-Urban Interface Building Code
(Rep. Levy; Sen Schwarz)
This bill would have required a BOCC to adopt a
wildland-urban interface (WUI) code governing the
construction or modification of structures in WUI
areas located within the unincorporated portion of
the county.
This bill did not pass out of committee.
Bill #9 – High Risk Wildfire Mitigation Grants
This bill creates the high-risk communities wildfire
mitigation grant program and fund within the
Colorado State Forest Service (CSFS) and
appropriates $10 million each year for five years to
the fund. The bill requires the CSFS to develop and
implement the program and provide grants from the
fund to local governments, the state, fire
protection districts, and homeowners' associations
for the purpose of wildfire mitigation measures.
The bill only allows grants for wildfire mitigation
measures that are located in wild land-urban
interface areas and that have been identified in a
community wildfire protection plan.
The bill was amended to include federal land
management agencies as qualified grant recipients.
The bill as amended passed out of the Committee.
Senator Kopp and Representative King will be the
Prime Sponsors.
Bill #10 – State Match for Emergency Fire Fund
This bill requires the state to make an
appropriation from the general fund to the state
forester in an amount equal to the total amount of
voluntary contributions made during the prior fiscal
year by counties and the Denver Water Board to the
emergency fire fund.
The bill was amended to identify the CSFS as the
recipient organization for the appropriation. The
bill as amended passed out of the Committee.
Representative King and Senator Penry will be the
Prime Sponsors.
Bill #11 — Incentives to Harvest Bark Beetle Timber
This bill provides a 5-year exemption from business
personal property taxes for qualified businesses
that remove trees killed by bark beetles if such
businesses assist in forest restoration efforts on
the affected land after the beetle-killed timber is
removed. This bill also establishes a revolving
fund in the CSFS to provide start-up revenues for
new Colorado businesses that process and sell
beetle-killed timber for beneficial uses.
The bill passed out of the Committee. Senator Kopp
and Representative King will be the Prime Sponsors.
The bills that were voted out of committee, as
amended, will go before the Legislative Council.
The Legislative Council must approve bills being
recommended by interim committees in order for the
bills to be exempt from the sponsors’ bill limit.
The Legislative Council will also determine whether
the legislative recommendations made by the interim
committee fit under the committee's charge. The
Legislative Council will meet to consider interim
committee on October 15, 2008.
Assuming they are approved by Legislative Council,
the bills will go forward for introduction in the
2009 Regular Session.
There is still work that needs to be done with other
stakeholders before the bills are introduced in the
2009 Regular Session and there are likely to be
amendments that will be recommended to the
sponsors. Also, some bills/bill topics that were
not advanced as an Interim Committee recommendation
may surface as bills to be carried by individual
members as their own bills. |
