August 7, 2025 board meeting minutes:

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Discussion: Board priorities

Board Member Navratil accepted an action item to prepare, preferably before the September board meeting, a proposal for the board concerning wildfire mitigation. This may or may not take into consideration a possible corporate restructuring to allow SCRO to accept grants. Board Member Squire has volunteered to assist with this effort.

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September 4, 2025 board meeting agenda:

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Background: Our community is prone to wildfire disasters; yet, we have no active plan for mitigating fires. During the regular board meeting on 8/7, Board Member Navratil accepted an action item to give a presentation on wildfire mitigation.

Presentation by Board Member Navratil: Presentation on wildfire mitigation (see attachment “Wildfire Mitigation”).

Discussion led by Board Member Navratil: Provide feedback on the options presented and determine next steps.

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September 4, 2025 board meeting minutes:

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Discussion: Board Member Frase proposed that the remaining four major agenda items [including this one] be discussed in the 9/18 work session rather than this board meeting due to the time limitation.

Vote: Board Member Squire moved to forward the remaining four major agenda items to the 9/18 work session; Board Member Powell seconded the motion. A voice vote resulted as follows: The yeas prevailed; motion passed.

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September 18, 2025 work session agenda:

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Background: Our community is prone to wildfire disasters; yet, we have no active plan for mitigating fires. During the regular board meeting on 8/7, Board Member Navratil accepted an action item to give a presentation on wildfire mitigation.

Presentation by Board Member Navratil: Presentation on wildfire mitigation.

Discussion led by Board Member Navratil: Provide feedback on the options presented and determine next steps.

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September 18, 2025 work session post-meeting notes:

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This agenda item was postponed to a future work session due to time constraints.

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October 2, 2025 board meeting minutes:

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Update:  Board Member Frase is scheduled to meet with representatives of CI International tomorrow (Oct 3rd) to learn about the upcoming Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) for Costilla County; she will determine if they are willing and able to give a presentation about this CWPP to SCRO’s membership at the November 1st membership meeting.

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October 16, 2025 work session agenda:

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Announcement: Our guest speaker for the November 1st membership meeting is Daniel Boyes, Executive Director of the Rio Grande Headwaters Restoration Project. He may be joined by Adam Moore, Supervisory Forester from the Alamosa Field Office of the Colorado State Forest Service.

   Last Friday (Oct 10), the Colorado Rio Grande Restoration Foundation (CRGRF) published a request for bid proposals from qualified contractors to develop, in tandem, the Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) for Costilla County [the area outlined in green in this photo] and Wildfire Ready Action Plan (WRAP) for a sub-watershed within Costilla County [the area outlined in pink in the same photo]. The Ranches community is a key stakeholder in this effort.

   ​This joint CWPP/WRAP plan is essential for reducing wildfire risks to communities and ecosystems, protecting water resources and forest/stream health, engaging communities in proactive measures, and allocating emergency resources efficiently. These combined efforts will contribute to safer, more resilient communities and healthier ecosystems.

   The contract will be awarded on December 2nd and the “hands-on” work is anticipated to begin during this upcoming winter. These two guest speakers are the two people who will be managing this contract and to whom the selected contractor will be reporting. The November 1st presentation will help our community understand what will be happening and how we can best participate as invested stakeholders.

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Background: Our community is prone to wildfire disasters; yet, we have no active plan for mitigating fires. During the regular board meeting on 8/7, Board Member Navratil accepted an action item to give a presentation on wildfire mitigation.

Presentation by Board Member Navratil: Presentation on wildfire mitigation (see attachment “Wildfire Mitigation”).

Discussion led by Board Member Navratil: Provide feedback on the options presented and determine next steps.

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October 16, 2025 work session post-meeting notes:

 

Presentation: Board Member Navratil gave a presentation on wildfire mitigation. His main points included:

• The community wildfire mitigation best practices toolbox listed in his presentation hand out (https://co-co.org/community-wildfire-mitigation-best-practices-toolbox/) if the best toolbox he has found. It is developed for Colorado and is very relevant to our community. He recommends that this link be placed on SCRO’s website.

• He recommends modeling SCRO’s new member packet after the Custer County new homeowner packet; and posting it to the website as an easily-downloadable pdf file. It should be available for the general public (not just SCRO members).

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October 16, 2025 work session post-meeting notes:

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Board Member Frase called attention to the guest speaker for the upcoming November 1st membership meeting. She declined to go into a full discussion due to a time shortage.

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November 1, 2025 membership meeting agenda:

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Guest speaker: Daniel Boyes, Executive Director, Rio Grande Headwaters Restoration Project

Attendees (including those who are not SCRO members) are welcome to ask questions anytime during the presentation.

Costilla County Wildfire Ready Action Plan & Community Wildfire Protection Plan

This presentation will cover the need for the CWPP update and WRAP planning effort. It will also cover the timeline of the planning effort, which will commence soon (map of project planning area).

Project General Description

Costilla County has a first generation CWPP (2008) that needs to be updated to meet current assessing technologies, hazard analysis, mitigation strategies, community education, emergency preparedness and response capabilities.

The area relies on water for municipal and agricultural uses from several sources provided by multiple watersheds inside the county boundary. There are many threats to forested watersheds in Colorado, including Costilla County, that provide drinking water for surrounding communities. These threats include wildfire and post-wildfire effects, insects and diseases, floods, and drought.

Recently, Colorado has seen impacts stemming from these threats in forested watersheds throughout the State, with sometimes multiple and overlapping threats affecting the same watersheds and water supplies within the same year. This proposal presents an approach to engage the community and create a detailed assessment of the values and hazards related to wildfire and water supply, analyze pre- and post-disturbance conditions, and develop both a comprehensive and interactive WRAP and CWPP.

Wildfire Ready Action Plan

As background, the Wildfire Ready Watersheds (WRW) program in Colorado is a pre-fire planning framework to protect watersheds from the potential impacts of wildfires. The WRW program starts with completion of a WRAP, which assesses the susceptibility of a watershed to post-fire impacts on community values such as water supplies, life and property, transportation corridors, and riparian and aquatic habitat. The WRAP identifies actions that communities can take before wildfires occur to plan for and minimize these impacts. For more details, see the CWCB webpages regarding Wildfire Ready Action Plans (https://www.wildfirereadywatersheds.com/actionplan). These combined efforts will contribute to safer, more resilient communities and healthier ecosystems.

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