Free wildfire and land services in La Plata County, Colorado
24 programs in 9 categories, plus 4 local offices in La Plata County. Every listing names its source; ring ahead before you rely on one. Every local listing here was checked on or after 31 August 2026.
La Plata County has two free assessments and they are not the same offer. The county's own wildfire resource centre assesses a parcel at no charge, and for a landowner inside its mapped programme area that assessment is the gate to being reimbursed part of the cost of mitigation done afterwards by a contractor. Wildfire Adapted Partnership, based in this county at Durango, runs its own free site risk assessment across five counties with its own cost share behind it. Extension is on Main Avenue in Durango. Ask which programme your parcel falls in before booking either.
Written from the listings on this page and reviewed by Larry Trimboli on 9 September 2026.
They get a short summary of what La Plata County has and a link back here. The address or number reaches our contact records, and a text says how to stop. Only send to someone who would want it.
Why Sierra Log & Timber cares about your vacant land
Sierra Log & Timber mills cedar log and timber home packages in Chico, California. A good part of our working week is spent with people who have just bought land, and the same thing happens every time: the grants, the chipping days, the defensible space visits and the permit desks are all real, and all scattered across a dozen county websites that do not link to one another. So we put them in one place and left it open. You do not have to be building a log home to use this, and reading it signs you up for nothing.
The office behind these listings is in Durango. 4 organisations and 4 programmes are recorded locally here. The local work runs to defensible space, home hardening and cost share. When somebody asks us to price a package for a parcel in La Plata County, these are the desks we point them at first. Access, clearing and defensible space all come before anything we mill, and they are cheaper before there is a building in the way.
Building on rural land in La Plata County
What applies in this county rather than across Colorado, each line with the source it was read from.
Where the building permit comes from
La Plata County Community Development Services, Building issues building permits here.
The rules that apply across Colorado, the building code the state has adopted, its wildfire construction standard, who issues a permit and whether you may build a house yourself, are on the Colorado page, each with the source it was read from.
Common questions
Does Sierra Log & Timber run any of these programmes?+
No. Every organisation and programme on this page is run by somebody else: a county office, a state agency, a nonprofit, a utility or a tribe. We collect them, check them and publish them, and that is the whole of our part in it. What we do ourselves is mill cedar log and timber home packages in Chico, California.
Is this free to use, and does using it sign me up for anything?+
The directory is free and reading it signs you up for nothing. The two panels below are the only places on this page that ask for an address, both are optional, and they do different jobs: one tells you when this county's listings change, the other tells us that something here is already wrong.
How current are the La Plata County listings?+
Every organisation here was checked against its own website or an official directory before it was published, and nothing goes on the page without a working way to reach it. That does not stop numbers changing, offices moving or a programme running out of money. When one of those happens, the second panel below is how it gets fixed.
They get a short summary of what La Plata County has and a link back here. The address or number reaches our contact records, and a text says how to stop. Only send to someone who would want it.
Free, from La Plata County Wildfire Resource Center
A free wildfire risk assessment of the parcel, which is also the gate to county money: a landowner inside the mapped programme area who has the assessment done and then hires a contractor may be reimbursed part of the cost of the mitigation.
Who qualifies Private landowners inside the county's mapped programme area. The assessment comes first and the reimbursement follows the completed work.
How to apply Sign up through the wildfire risk site assessment form linked from the county's living with fire page.
A member of staff comes out to the property and goes through defensible space and home hardening with the owner. It is also the gateway to the partnership's cost share: the free assessment is the first step of that programme.
Who qualifies Landowners in the five counties the partnership serves. Whether the cost share that follows is available depends on whether the property falls inside what the partnership calls its grant geography, which is narrower than the service area.
How to apply Sign up through the free wildfire site risk page on the partnership's own website, or email info@wildfireadapted.org. The partnership warns that its office is not always staffed and that email gets the fastest response.
Free to qualifying landowners, from Housing Resources of Western Colorado
The Colorado Weatherization Assistance Program sends this provider to the home itself: an energy audit first, then the work, insulation, air sealing and repair or replacement of unsafe heating equipment, at no cost to a household that qualifies on income. The provider also helps with the application. A home weatherized in the previous fifteen years is not eligible again.
Who qualifies Income-qualified households, and a home not weatherized in the previous fifteen years. The Colorado Energy Office names this provider as the one for the county; the provider itself confirms eligibility and does the energy audit.
Cost shareStatewidefrom Colorado State Forest Service
State grant funding for community level projects that reduce wildfire risk to people, property and infrastructure in the wildland urban interface and promote forest health and… Details: who qualifies, how to apply
Technical help for private forest landowners and the Forest Stewardship programme, delivered in California through the CAL FIRE partnership. Details: what to know
FreeStatewidefrom Colorado State Forest Service Nursery
A donor funded programme that gives no cost seedling trees to Colorado landowners whose property has been damaged by wildfire or another natural disaster, so burned… Details: what to know, who qualifies, how to apply
FreeStatewidefrom Colorado Department of Agriculture
The state programme that coordinates local, state and federal weed managers, funds on the ground weed management projects and helps identify what is growing. Details: how to apply
Cost shareClosedStatewidefrom Colorado State Forest Service
State funding for outreach among landowners in high wildfire hazard areas, awarded to local governments, counties, municipalities, special districts, tribal agencies and non profits rather than… Details: who qualifies
FreeNationwidefrom USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
Federal help to stabilise a watershed after a disaster, which after a fire means the burn scars, the slipping slopes and the choked channels the fire… Details: what to know, who qualifies
FreeStatewidefrom Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control
A statewide model code for wildfire resilience, covering the hardening of structures and the defensible space around them in the wildland urban interface. Details: who qualifies, how to apply
Numbers change and programmes run out of money. Leave an address and it is held against the La Plata County page so you can be told when a listing here is added, changed or removed. No account.
What is stored is your address and which county page you left it on, and nothing else: no name, no location, nothing about what you read. It is used for that one notification and for nothing else, it appears nowhere on this site, and this site cannot read the list back. Nothing has been sent to any address yet, because the notices are not built; when they are, every message will say how to stop them.
Something on this page is wrong?
Numbers change, offices move and programmes run out of money. If something on this page is wrong, tell us and a person will check it.
Cost shareStatewidefrom Colorado Strategic Wildfire Action Program
State funding that puts conservation corps crews and Department of Corrections wildland fire crews onto wildfire mitigation projects, with the state paying the crew partner directly,… Details: who qualifies, how to apply
Cost shareNationwidefrom USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
Financial and technical cost share for conservation practices on cropland, rangeland and private non industrial forestland. Details: who qualifies, how to apply
FreeNationwidefrom Federal Emergency Management Agency
Individual Assistance, disaster case management and Hazard Mitigation Assistance after a federal disaster declaration; preparedness guides at ready.gov. Details: what to know, who qualifies, how to apply
Home repair loans to around 40,000 dollars, and grants to around 10,000 dollars for owners 62 and over, to remove health and safety hazards in eligible… Details: what to know
Help with the cost of wildfire vegetation mitigation for landowners inside the partnership's grant geography, entered through the free site risk assessment. The partnership also runs a chipper rebate.
Who qualifies Landowners within the partnership's grant geography, established by the free wildfire risk site assessment that comes first.
How to apply Book the free wildfire risk site assessment first; the partnership says that is the first step of the cost share programme.
Free guidance on insurance claims, contractors, rebuilding and avoiding scams: the little yellow book, the Ask an Expert forum, and in person and Zoom clinics in… Details: what to know
Free
Nationwide
from USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
Free soil and parcel mapping tool for any parcel: septic suitability, building limitations and vegetation. Details: what to know
What you send goes to the people who maintain this directory and appears nowhere on this site. Your email is used to reply to you and for nothing else.
