Boulder County opened the Fall 2026 Strategic Fuels Mitigation Grant Program (SFMG) on September 17, 2026. The program uses the county’s voter-approved wildfire mitigation sales and use tax to support large landscape and community-wide forest and grassland management projects and Community Wildfire Protection Plan work.
Application deadline: October 29, 2026. Boulder County’s current controlling program page states the date but does not publish a closing clock time or time zone. The exact deadline therefore remains incomplete for new cold outreach under Atlas verification rules.
Eligible applicants: Local government entities in Boulder County; private utilities, ditch companies, and water providers; state agencies that own or manage land in Boulder County; qualifying homeowners associations; and nonprofit organizations. Grasslands eligibility for HOAs is narrower and generally requires management of larger open-space areas or buffers outside the community boundary.
Funding: Boulder County has a $2 million annual SFMG budget distributed across spring and fall cycles. The program normally limits requests to $600,000 per application per cycle, although requests above that amount may be considered case by case. Funding is project-specific and may be awarded in full or in part.
Match/cost share: The standard SFMG structure requires a minimum 50% match from other grant programs or funding sources, with Boulder County funding 50% of the total project budget. Projects in qualifying socially vulnerable communities may reduce the required match to 25%, with SFMG providing up to 75% of the total project funding when the applicant supplies the required evidence. Cash and in-kind contributions may qualify as match.
Eligible work: Forest and grassland fuels reduction may include fuel breaks, thinning, prescribed fire, mowing, grazing, shrub or tree removal, slash disposal, cross-boundary treatments, and related strategic mitigation. Planning grants may support updates to existing Community Wildfire Protection Plans or development of new plans.
Project-development requirements: Fuels-mitigation applicants must coordinate with an appropriate forestry, wildfire, forest, or grasslands expert and complete a pre-project site visit before submission. The site visit form must be signed by the consulting forester or other authorized expert and be current. Projects must be strategic and tied to relevant wildfire, hazard, forest-management, watershed, risk-map, focus-area, or related planning priorities.
Submission method and required materials: Boulder County directs applicants to combine the application and allowable supporting documents into a compressed ZIP folder and email it to cppwildfiregrants@bouldercounty.gov. Fuels-mitigation submissions require the application, project map, spatial data for proposed treatment areas, site visit form, and landowner match tool. Additional support materials outside the allowed set are not considered. Separate planning application and planning guidance are provided for CWPP projects.
Atlas Analysis
Atlas Opportunity Score: 82/100. N9+ Fit Score: 0/100. QC Healthcare Fit Score: 0/100. This is a substantive Colorado-owned wildfire-resilience grant with significant funding, but the controlling materials are focused on fuels mitigation, forestry, grasslands work, and CWPP planning rather than clinical equipment or healthcare-service delivery.
Direct-vendor review: A direct Dr. Miltie path is not viable under current rules. The opportunity requires a substantial non-Federal match for standard projects, and the allowable-cost structure centers on qualified project labor, contractual mitigation or CWPP consulting, and project-specific materials rather than N9+ or QC Healthcare services. No applicant outreach should be initiated unless a separately verified eligible project and recipient clear every governing gate, including authoritative confirmation of the exact closing time and time zone.
Application production note: Any applicant package must use Boulder County’s controlling Fall 2026 fuels-mitigation or planning application and guidance. Unknown applicant-specific facts, maps, match commitments, fiscal-agent data, landowner information, site-visit results, or signatures must not be invented.