Boulder County, CO, Awards $2M in Grants to Rural Fire Districts

Boulder County this week awarded about $2 million to mainly rural fire districts in the third round of fall grants from the Emergency Services Sales and Use Tax.

The grants, approved Tuesday by the Boulder County commissioners, were the third round awarded since the tax was approved by voters in 2022. In the fall of 2024, the county awarded $1.3 million in emergency services grants. In the fall of 2023, the first round totaled $1.6 million.

“We try to help those agencies that just don’t have as much mill levy or tax funding,” said Barb Halpin, Boulder County special projects coordinator.

Along with the fire protection district grants, the county awards grants to local search and rescue organizations in the spring. About a quarter of the money generated by the tax goes to emergency services grants, while about half is being spent on a new search and rescue building. The remaining quarter is earmarked for ambulance services and wildland firefighting staff.

The current round of grants was open to fire departments, fire protection districts and fire management teams that serve Boulder County’s mountain and rural areas. Boulder County received 21 funding proposals totaling about $5 million. The grant application were evaluated by an emergency services advisory committee.

The largest award, $ 246,551, went to the all-volunteer Indian Peaks Fire Protection District in Ward to replace a failing, 1992 truck with a newer, higher capacity brush truck to respond to abandoned campfires, smoke reports and wildland fires. The grant also includes funding to insulate and heat the station where the truck will be housed.

The smallest award was $1,950 for the Pinewood Springs Fire Protection District to buy tools to use in responding to crashes involving electric and hybrid cars and other emergencies involving rechargeable batteries.

Four grant requests were partially funded, while one request didn’t receive funding. That request came from Boulder Fire-Rescue, which asked for $1.98 million to replace its regional training burn building. According to the request, the live burn building is out of service because of structural integrity issues.

Halpin said the request wasn’t approved because it was close to the entire grant budget. Plus, she said, the project likely would qualify for state or federal funding.

“The grant program didn’t seem like the right venue,” she said.

The commissioners on Tuesday also questioned three requests that will require ongoing funding. While the commissioners approved the requests, they also agreed to a future discussion on whether the grant money should be limited to one-time expenses.

Those requests included $141,634 to enhance the county dispatch system with automatic voice alerting, replacing outdated technology and improving efficiency and alert quality. While most of the money will go to purchase equipment, it also will be used for an ongoing subscription service.

Boulder County asked for $65,780 to continue what started as a free pilot using wildfire detection cameras. The grant will pay for one year of monitoring services for the cameras, which are placed in backcountry areas. The third request that would require ongoing funding was $147,125 for emergency medical services training classes for 17 agencies, allowing rural fire departments to better respond to medical emergencies.

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