Colorado's Wildfire Task Force Just Expired. Here's the Plan to Bring It Back.

What This Bill Actually Does

Colorado has a part-time legislature, meaning our elected officials only have 120 frantic days each spring to pass laws. Because complex issues like forest health and emergency management take more time to figure out, the state relies on interim committees—special groups of lawmakers that meet during the summer and fall to study specific problems and draft solutions.

For years, the Wildfire Matters Review Committee has been the state's dedicated engine for wildfire legislation. But like many state programs, it had a "sunset" clause. On September 1, 2025, the committee legally expired. Because it expired right before the crucial legislative planning meetings in November, lawmakers couldn't automatically renew it for the 2026 session. Senate Bill 26-089 is the administrative CPR needed to bring the committee back to life and keep it running through June 30, 2031.

If passed, the bill re-establishes a 10-member bipartisan committee (five from the Senate, five from the House). They are required to meet at least twice a year and are allowed to take up to two field trips to tour burn scars, mitigation projects, and high-risk communities. Most importantly, this committee gets a special superpower: they are allowed to recommend up to five specific bills per year that bypass the normal limits placed on how many bills a lawmaker can introduce. The legislation explicitly tasks them with focusing on public safety, forest health, and the increasingly dangerous wildland-urban interface—the zones where our neighborhoods bleed into the natural forest.

What It Means for You

If you live anywhere near the foothills, a mountain town, or the sprawling grasslands of the Front Range, this bill directly impacts who is managing the environment in your backyard. The legislation specifically calls out the tragic winter fires of 2021 (like the Marshall Fire) and the devastating summer fires of 2012, acknowledging that living in the wildland-urban interface is becoming increasingly risky.

Why does a procedural committee matter to you? Because this is the exact room where the state's biggest wildfire decisions are made. If you've been frustrated by skyrocketing homeowner's insurance premiums, confusing evacuation protocols, or a lack of state funding to help you clear brush off your property, this committee is the group that actually drafts the laws to fix those problems. By re-establishing this committee, lawmakers are guaranteeing that wildfire prevention gets dedicated, year-round attention, rather than just reactive panic when the sky fills with smoke every August.

If this bill passes, the newly appointed committee will start its work fast, with their first meeting required to happen by July 31 every year.

What you should do:

• Check the roster this June: The House and Senate leadership must appoint the 10 members by June 1, 2026. Check to see if your local representative gets a seat at the table.
• Show up to a field trip: The committee takes two field trips a year to impacted communities. If they come to your county, attend the public meeting. They are there specifically to listen to residents.

What It Means for Your Business

If your business touches forestry, construction, property insurance, or emergency management, this committee is your main legislative pipeline. For contractors doing defensible space or forest thinning work, this group drafts the bills that dictate state grant programs and funding. For real estate developers, this is where new building codes or zoning restrictions around fire zones are usually brainstormed and debated.

Here is the exact provision you need to pay attention to: The bill legally requires the committee to seek presentations from "private industry." They aren't just listening to fire chiefs and academics; they are mandated by law to hear from businesses that have solutions to wildfire problems. Whether you operate a fleet of heavy logging machinery, run a drone startup focused on early fire detection, or manage a landscaping company specializing in fire-resistant native plants, this committee is an open door to influence state policy and uncover upcoming public contracts.

Because the committee is allowed to draft up to five bills per interim, the ideas presented to them in August often become fully funded state laws by the following May. If you aren't at the table during those summer interim meetings, you are missing out on the ground floor of Colorado's multi-million dollar wildfire mitigation economy.

What you should do THIS WEEK:

• Prepare your pitch: The committee will start meeting by late July. Start drafting a one-pager outlining how your business's technology or services can help mitigate Colorado's wildfire risk.
• Contact the sponsors: Reach out to the bill's sponsors (Sens. Cutter and Baisley, Rep. Velasco) to express your support for the committee's revival and formally request a slot to present your industry insights during their upcoming summer session.

Follow the Money

This is a very cheap bill that will eventually pave the way for very expensive legislation. To simply run the committee, the bill requires an appropriation of $61,662 from the General Fund for the 2026-27 fiscal year, bumping up to around $80,351 in the following years.

Where does that money go? Since lawmakers are already paid a salary, this funding covers the extra costs of summer work. It includes a daily per diem for the 10 legislators ($119.95 in 2026, projected to jump to $218.28 in 2027), travel expenses for their two field trips (like van rentals and hotel stays), and roughly 0.4 FTE (full-time equivalent) for the legislative and legal staff who actually organize the meetings and write the bills. While the committee itself costs less than $100,000 a year to operate, the five bills they are allowed to introduce each year often carry millions of dollars in state grants and local government funding.

Where This Bill Stands

Senate Bill 26-089 was introduced in the Senate on February 10, 2026. It quickly cleared the Senate Agriculture & Natural Resources Committee on February 19, where it was slightly amended and sent over to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Any bill that costs the state money—even just $61,000—has to go through Appropriations. While that committee can sometimes be a graveyard for expensive legislation, this bill has a very high likelihood of passing. Wildfire mitigation is a universally recognized, bipartisan priority in Colorado. This bill is simply fixing a procedural sunset date that accidentally slipped past the legislature last year. Expect it to clear Appropriations and pass comfortably through both chambers before the session ends in May.