Vegetative Fuel Mitigation
The bill allows a fire protection district or a metropolitan district providing fire protection services (district) to create a program to mitigate the presence of dead or dry plant material that can burn and contribute to a fire on privately owned property within a district (vegetative fuel program). Privately owned property does not include property classified as agricultural land by the tax assessor or property owned by a nonprofit entity that is leased for agricultural purposes. A district that creates a vegetative fuel program is required to adopt policies consistent with the 2024 International Wildland-urban Interface Code, a subsequent code established by the International Code Council, or the standards and codes adopted or issued by the Colorado wildfire resiliency code board. A district that creates a vegetative fuel program may require an owner or occupier with an interest in private real property that contains vegetative fuel within the district to remove the vegetative fuel and assess a fine per incident of noncompliance. An incident covers all vegetative fuel on a property. In order to assess a fine, for each incident, the district must provide written notice by certified mail of the requirement to remove vegetative fuel and allow at least 10 days for the owner or occupier to comply. An owner or occupier that does not remove the vegetative fuel as provided in the first notice may be subject to a second notice requiring the removal of vegetative fuel. An owner or occupier has at least 10 days to comply with the second notice. An owner or occupier that does not comply within at least 10 days after the second notice may receive a third notice providing for a fine approximately equal to the cost of removing the vegetative fuel. The fine may not exceed $300 per property per incident and an owner or occupier is not subject to more than one fine for the same incident . An owner or occupier receiving a third notice may avoid a fine by removing the vegetative fuel within 10 days of the date of the third notice.
The money a district collects from a fine must be used by the district to remove vegetative fuel on private real property within the district's jurisdiction. An owner or occupier that is subject to a fine imposed by the district has standing to file an objection to the fine with the district's board. A district's board may waive the fine in all or in part, in its discretion, if it determines that the fine was not assessed pursuant to law, an owner or occupier is financially unable to pay the fine, or the vegetative fuel has been removed, and must prioritize use of the money to assist a low-income owner or occupier, a senior owner or occupier, or an owner or occupier with a disability in removing vegetative fuel from the owner or occupier's property. A district may also waive a fine for delays due to weather or upon a petition for a time extension from an owner or occupier if they have undertaken good faith efforts to remove the vegetative fuel. A district shall not assess a lien on any property for unpaid fines until the owner or occupier of the property has 5 or more unpaid fines for violations concerning the same property.
A district shall adopt rules and policies after a public hearing, public notice and public comment to implement the bill and shall post the adopted rules and policies to the district's website. As part of the rules and policies, a district shall designate an individual to oversee and manage the district's vegetative fuel program.
(Note: Italicized words indicate new material added to the original summary; dashes through words indicate deletions from the original summary.)
(Note: This summary applies to the reengrossed version of this bill as introduced in the second house.)