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Chipping Program

The 2024 Chipping Season has begun!

Boulder County continues taking steps forward in its community safety with the 2024 season launch of Wildfire Partners Community Chipping Program. This program supports all county residents with managing high-risk vegetation and reducing slash build-up on their properties, fostering a safer, cleaner, and more fire-resilient environment for all. Through mitigation and collaboration amongst homeowners groups of five or more will work together to complete a chipping event in their local community.

Our Community Chipping Program is available to residents in Unincorporated Boulder County, City of Boulder, Erie (Boulder County portions), Jamestown, Lafayette, Longmont, Louisville, Lyons, Nederland, Superior and Ward.

What is a Chipping Event?

A chipping event is when homeowners collaborate to dispose of small branches, twigs, brush, tree branches and limbs, and small diameter trees (also known as “slash”) from their home properties. During a chipping event, residents prepare piles of slash in front of their homes. On the scheduled event date (coordinated by one person from your neighborhood), a county-approved contractor arrives to each home and chips the piles through a wood chipping machine. The contractor then drives away with the woodchips to one of our partnering farm sites or a Boulder County community sort yard for disposal.

What’s new for this season?

We’ve made some minor changes to last year’s Community Chipping Program, including adding more Contractors and ways to make it easier for you to host your own event! Please read through this entire page and the FAQs here before proceeding.

The program still requires one person or household to assume the role of Chipping Event Host for their community chipping event. The Host is responsible for completing an application for themself and at least 4 neighbors, coordinating a chipping date with a County approved contractor and participating neighbors, and educating others on slash pile requirements (using our Wildfire Partners slash requirement video below.)

How the program works

1. Boulder County residents interested in organizing a chipping event for their local community fill out an application under one individual (aka the “Host”).

2. Wildfire Partners staff review the application and notify the homeowner if it’s approved, usually within 1-2 weeks.

3. Upon approval, the homeowner receives an email from Wildfire Partners with a list of approved chipping contractors, instructions for contacting and scheduling a contractor, and a reminder of slash pile requirements.

4. The homeowner contacts a contractor from the approved list and schedules the event day(s), then informs Wildfire Partners and their community of the date.

5. The homeowner educates participating homeowners on how to register and prepare slash piles for the event day(s).

6. On the event day(s), the contractor chips the slash piles at the registered locations and transports the chips to approved donation sites in Boulder County.

7. Wildfire Partners pays the contractor directly upon completion of the work.

Application

Before completing the application, please ensure that you have the names, addresses, and emails of the neighbors who will participate in the chipping event. This information must be provided on the application. Please remember that at least 5 neighbors (including the Chipping Event Host) must be included for the application to be approved.

 

If you have questions or need additional information, please email Zack Bertges at zbertges@bouldercounty.gov.

 

To see last season’s success, check out 2023’s Chipping Program Results!
Wildfire Partners Community Chipping Application

FAQs

What’s new for the 2024 Chipping Program FAQ?

The application, updated forms, and the process of how the Host will add participants to their event have all undergone some minor procedural changes (changes are explained in the Host approval email). Wildfire Partners has also added additional contractors, and we’ve set some slash pile requirements below.

Do I have to follow these new steps for 2024, or can I just email you a list of properties like last year? Why the change?

You must follow all steps listed on the WildfirePartners.org website and in the supporting emails for 2024. This is to ensure that all communications between the Host, Coordinator, Contractor, and Event Participants remain effective as the program scales to support all of Boulder County.

Chipping Program Information

Questions?

zbertges@bouldercounty.gov

303-678-6168