Prescribed burn projects undertaken by firefighting agencies throughout La Plata County are often heralded as one of the most effective ways to defend communities and forests against wildland fires.
The benefits of controlled burns are myriad.
Controlled, low-intensity fires managed by humans reduce flammable undergrowth when fire danger is low. That not only makes it harder for wildfires to spread later in the year during periods of heightened fire danger, it can also increase the health and biodiversity of forests and put money back into the communities through mitigation work.
But nothing is free – and prescribed burns come with their own price tags.
Basically, the way treating a forest with prescribed fire works is through thinning flammable overgrowth using machinery and labor, piling the debris accumulated through that thinning, burning those piles, and later burning the ground itself to keep the growth of flammable understory down.
Durango Fire Protection District Wildfire Battalion Chief Scott Nielsen said that process is known as first entry, and it accounts for nearly all of the district’s mitigation work.
“A lot of the forest is really thick with vegetation, so you have to pile it and then burn it,” he said.
Pile burning is one of the two main methods firefighters conduct prescribed burns. The other is broadcast burns: Low-intensity fire is applied and monitored by wildland firefighters across a predetermined swath of forest floor to remove flammable undergrowth.
Nielsen said broadcast burns are generally done after a pile burn is completed.
Pile burns are also cheaper than broadcast burns, U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Lorena Williams said. Terrain is one of the main reasons why a broadcast burn is more expensive.
“Some landscapes are more complex than others – think terrain, vegetation types and proximity to the wildland urban interface,” she said. “For example, a prescribed fire in a remote grassland may have a lower cost than a prescribed fire in a forest near homes and other values.”
Bureau of Land Management spokeswoman Michelle Ailport said the costs of each project were variable and tied to their complexity and duration. Staffing in particular plays a major role in the total cost.
“Engines, overhead staff, EMTs and holding resources all translate into increased personnel hours,” she said. “When burns extend across multiple days, staffing requirements for safe and effective operations increase costs.”
Nielsen said the thinning process, otherwise known as mastication, costs DFPD anywhere from $1,000 to $4,000 per acre, mainly because of how much growth there is and how steep the terrain is.
“The steeper, the thicker, the (more) expensive it is,” he said.
But, once that work is done, burning the piles themselves roughly costs the department only $200 per acre, Nielsen said. Additionally, DFPD does not usually conduct broadcast burns.
Williams said a pile burn costs the Forest Service $50 per acre, while broadcast burns cost $150 to $300 per acre.
In 2025, the Forest Service conducted pile burns on 30 acres of national forest within La Plata County, ringing up a bill of $1,500. As of June, the agency had conducted broadcast burns on 558 acres in Sauls Creek, with a total of $140,000.
Ailport said the agency’s Chelsea, Skyline and Rabbit Mountain prescribed fire projects – which mitigated a total of 426 acres – rang up a combined cost of $335,000. Rabbit Mountain cost $700 per acre, while the Chelsea and Skyline projects cost roughly $1,040 per acre.
Taxes are largely used to pay for prescribed fires, although that depends largely on what agency is conducting the burns.
Ailport and Williams said Congress appropriates tax money to fund their agencies’ prescribed fire projects. When it comes to prescribed burns, cost is front and center throughout the entire planning process.
“Funding for prescribed fire operations on BLM-managed public lands primarily comes from federal Wildland Fire Management and Hazardous Fuels Reduction appropriations in the national budget,” Ailport said. “Prescribed burns are often interagency operations, meaning costs and responsibilities are shared when projects cross jurisdictions or benefit multiple communities.”
Those partnerships help ensure each agency contributes its fair share – whether through funding, personnel, equipment or logistical support – while maximizing efficiency and public benefit, she said.
“This collaborative approach stretches taxpayer dollars further and ensures fire management work is focused on where it has the greatest impact,” Ailport said.
Nielsen said the cost for DFPD’s prescribed fire projects largely come out of the department’s budget and grant funding in addition to tax money. For instance, an Environmental Protection District Wind Grant payed for a prescribed burn project the department completed in Durango West last December
At the same time, because agencies like DFPD are taxpayer funded, he said DFPD tries to contract with local forestry companies.
“Since we’re tax funded, we strive to do it at cost and not make money off of fuel reduction projects,” he said.
He said the department’s mitigation projects have helped put $1.8 million back into the local economy using contractors since 2022.
Even though prescribed burns cost money, they end up being a good return on investment, Nielsen said, because they are far cheaper than letting a destructive wildfire destroy neighborhoods, businesses and infrastructure.
“Every time we reduce the fuel loading, that means the fire has less fuel to burn,” he said. “A fire would be less intense and with less intensity; it should be easier and cheaper to suppress, and hopefully not nearly as destructive.”
Ailport agreed.
“(Prescribed burns) are carefully planned, staffed and carried out under the right conditions,” she said. “Agencies can better control expenses and use resources efficiently. In contrast, large, unplanned wildfires can become extremely costly, especially if they escape initial attack.”
Wildfires sometimes require weeks of round-the-clock suppression efforts, Ailport said, including large incident management teams, specialized aircraft, heavy equipment and extensive logistics.
“Prescribed fire is one of the most cost-effective tools the federal government uses to reduce wildfire risk,” she said. “By investing in this work upfront, the American public benefits from safer communities, reduced suppression costs and the protection of public resources.”
A 2023 Colorado State University Study found that wildfires left unchecked could threaten “direct loss of property and life, smoke and health impacts, indirect impacts of a fire on tourism and home values, and impacts on agriculture.”
Performing prescribed burns are a small cost to pay to prevent those losses.
“Prevention and mitigation is a really good return on investment,” Nielsen said.
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