How Strategic Chipping Days in Glade Park Helped Crews Focus on the Work

Turning a Grant Into Real Progress in Glade Park

Chipping days are one of those wildfire mitigation tools that sound simple on paper—and quickly become complicated in practice.

Clean, well organized roadside chipper piles made by the landowner, help the crew efficiently clear mateials from the HIZ

Landowners need clear instructions. Piles have to be built correctly. Routes need to be planned. Crews need to move efficiently. And someone has to coordinate dozens of conversations before the first chip ever hits the ground.

In Glade Park, that coordination is exactly what made the difference.

The Opportunity—and the Challenge

The Mesa County Sheriff's Office Wildland Fire Team secured grant funding to purchase a chipper and commit to a set number of community chipping days. Like many grants, the funding was solid—but where and how those days would be used was flexible.

Without coordination, those days could have landed anywhere.

Instead, Two Rivers Wildfire Coalition helped direct the effort toward Glade Park, one of the county’s longest-running and most engaged Neighborhood Ambassador areas. These were neighborhoods where residents already understood their wildfire risk, had been actively mitigating for years, and were ready to take the next step.

Organizing the Work So Crews Could Do Their Jobs

Crews were able to mitigate significant hazardous fuels and even hauled to a disposal location where chips left on ground were not feasible.

Through the efforts of the Glade Park Wildfire Mitigation Cooperative, 24 landowners across four neighborhoods signed up to participate. Each landowner completed their own mitigation work—cutting, thinning, and hauling material to roadside piles.

Behind the scenes, TRWC handled the heavy lift:

• Creating maps and routing plans for crews

• Canvassing neighborhoods and distributing clear instructions

• Calling landowners, sending reminders, and sharing photos of proper pile setup

• Coordinating access, timing, and a chip disposal site

• Labeling and identifying every pile in advance

  
  

By the time crews arrived, the work was staged, organized, and ready.

The result: the Wildland Fire Team was able to show up with a plan and focus entirely on chipping, not logistics.

Efficient Operations, Real Results

Over several days, crews chipped and managed piles across Glade Park—broadcasting chips where appropriate and hauling material away from residential areas when needed.

The numbers tell the story:

• 24 participating landowners

• 325+ hours of landowner labor reported

• 240+ acres treated

• Some landowners effectively treated entire 40-acre parcels through this effort alone

  
  

That kind of impact doesn’t happen by accident. It happens when residents, agencies, and coordination capacity are aligned.

Why This Model Works

For residents, the benefit is obvious: real help dealing with green waste—often the biggest barrier to sustained mitigation.

For the Wildland Fire Team, the payoff is just as important:

• Grant commitments delivered efficiently

• Crews operating at full productivity

• Minimal time spent on phone calls, troubleshooting, or rework

  
  

For everyone involved, it’s proof that wildfire mitigation isn’t a one-and-done effort. It’s a long-term relationship with the land—and with each other.

When coordination is handled well, everyone gets to focus on what they do best.

That’s how limited resources go further. And that’s the kind of partnership Two Rivers Wildfire Coalition exists to support.

For more information on this story tworiverswildfirecoalition@gmail.com, or (970) 462-7071.