An interim legislative committee on wildfire issues embraced a package of wide-ranging measures today in hopes of heading off—and better preparing for—Colorado’s next round of menacing wildfires.

Created by Senate Joint Resolution 25, the Committee on Wildfire Issues in Wild Land-Urban Interface Areas was the brainchild of Sen. Mike Kopp, R-Littleton, and Rep. Rob Witwer, R-Genesee, to take an active role in anticipating future wildfires and helping community firefighting programs.

"The interim committee was set up to address head-on the challenges of wildfire issues that Colorado's mountain communities face," said Kopp, himself a former hotshot firefighter.  "I am pleased at the bipartisan nature of the proceedings and that we have grown the ranks of legislators who will join in taking a leadership role on this high priority issue."

The interim committee has met six times this year to study the challenges to traditional firefighting resources and to discuss policy changes and make legislative recommendations on state wildfire issues.  The committee took public comments and testimony from groups involved in wildfire mitigation and has come up with several bills to address this issue.

Kopp, who will sponsor three of the measures in the 2009 legislature, said his county's residents know the dangers that present themselves where there has been poor management of forests. Kopp’s bills include one to provide high-risk wildfire mitigation grants, and one that creates commercial incentives for removing dead trees that were infested by bark beetles and pose a fire hazard. The proactive measures will move forward as bills to the General Assembly.  If passed, they will give local communities the tools they will need to begin getting ahead of the curve when it comes to wildfire prevention, said Kopp.

The General Assembly will be back in session on Jan. 7.