Congress Should Fix Our Forests Before the Next Red Flag Warning

By Hunter Rivera | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice

I still remember the orange sky over Loveland in October 2020: ash on windshields, headlights at noon, and a horizon rimmed with flame. The Cameron Peak Fire burned more than 200,000 acres across the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests and Rocky Mountain National Park, destroying hundreds of structures and forcing thousands to evacuate. The same month, the East Troublesome Fire exploded across Grand County, jumping the Continental Divide and claiming lives. Those weren’t abstract “Western wildfire” headlines. They were in Northern Colorado’s front yard.

If you want to remember what megafire really means, drive Highway 14 toward Cameron Pass. Mile after mile, blackened trunks still stand like matchsticks where forests once shaded the Poudre. Or, take Rist Canyon Road and see the hillsides that haven’t recovered, the drainages that still bleed ash after a hard rain. Years later, the scar remains, on the land and in the communities that call it home.

We can’t keep accepting this as normal. And we don’t have to.

The bipartisan Fix Our Forests Act (FOFA), which passed the U.S. House in January with a 279–141 vote, gives land managers and communities the tools to get ahead of megafires. The Senate version has now advanced out of committee with bipartisan support. That momentum is overdue.

So what would FOFA actually do for places like Larimer and Grand Counties, which have lived through the worst wildfires in Colorado’s history?

First, it prioritizes action in the highest-risk “firesheds,” landscapes where a single ignition is most likely to turn catastrophic. FOFA establishes a Fireshed Center to improve forecasting, data sharing, and coordination across federal, state, tribal, and local partners. In plain English: better information, faster decisions, and fewer bureaucratic silos.

Second, FOFA streamlines environmental review for well-defined, science-based forest management projects in high-risk areas. Today, it can take years to approve a prescribed burn or thinning project, longer than it takes a spark to become a disaster. The goal isn’t to sidestep environmental protections; it’s to prevent the kind of high-severity fires that sterilize soil, devastate watersheds, and send communities fleeing.

Third, the bill scales what’s already working. Congress has tested this approach before. In the Lake Tahoe Basin, a targeted 10,000-acre thinning project allowed crews to move quickly. When the Caldor Fire threatened South Lake Tahoe in 2021, treated areas helped drop flames to the forest floor and gave firefighters a chance to hold the line. FOFA would allow similar, carefully defined projects in the highest-risk forests across the West.

FOFA also supports home-hardening, reforestation, watershed repair, and collaborative programs such as the Joint Chiefs Landscape Restoration Partnership, ensuring communities aren’t just protected before fires, but are better equipped to recover after them.

Coloradans know the stakes. Cameron Peak and East Troublesome didn’t just burn trees; they damaged habitats, hammered small businesses, threatened water supplies, and turned our air toxic. 

Climate change is widening the window for extreme fire weather, but decades of poor forest management have left our forests overgrown, beetle-killed, and more susceptible to burning. Good forestry is climate adaptation. It’s also common sense.

FOFA isn’t a partisan outlier. It’s backed by a bipartisan coalition in Congress and supported by conservation and wildlife groups who recognize that prescribed fire and strategic thinning, done with clear guardrails, are essential tools. 

The choice before Congress isn’t between “doing nothing” and “clear-cutting.” It’s between proactive stewardship now, or more October afternoons where local children breathe smoke while hoping the wind shifts.

Colorado has been living with the megafire reality for years. The Senate should pass the Fix Our Forests Act before the end of the year and provide communities and firefighters with a better playbook for the next red-flag warning.  

Here along the Front Range, we know the question isn’t whether the next megafire will come; it’s whether we’re ready when it does.

Hunter Rivera is the Colorado State Director for the American Conservation Coalition Action and Chairman of the Weld County Republican Party.

Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.