President Joe Biden signed an executive order Friday directing the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to spearhead efforts to protect, sustain and rebuild the nation’s old-growth forests, mitigate the threat of wildfire and support local communities’ response to forest fires.

“These magnificent ecosystems are threatened by the climate impacts that are already here, with intensifying wildfires demanding urgent action to protect our forests and the economies that depend on them. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides historic wildfire resilience funding and calls for prioritizing the restoration of old-growth forests,” says the executive order.

Initial investments will focus on communities at the highest risk. The Forest Service’s 10-year wildfire strategy calls for treating up to 20 million acres on national forests and grasslands and up to 30 million acres of treatments on other federal, state, tribal, private and family lands.

The Forest Service plans to treat a total of 36,100 acres out of some 3.5 million acres of national forest land along the Front Range in Colorado. It has allocated $18.1 million for fiscal year 2022 and $170.4 million for the 2022 – 2024 fiscal years. That comes to some $4,720 per acre to treat about 1% of the vulnerable forests in the Arapaho, Roosevelt and Pike and San Isabel national forests. The anticipated completion of “initial treatments” is 2027 to 2029.

Using an “integrated approach across the landscape,” and partnering with numerous local agencies and landowners, the U.S. Forest Service will use mechanical thinning followed by prescribed fire.

“Thanks to the investments made in President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, USDA is taking the next step in reducing wildfire risk, especially in Western states where communities, infrastructure and resources are at the most risk,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack during a visit to Lyons on April 11. “The people of Colorado need no reminding of the dire threat wildfire presents to states across the West.”

“In FY 2022 the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests expects to use four contracts, three timber sales, multiple prescribed fire projects, one Good Neighbor Agreement, and three new agreements. The Pike and San Isabel National Forests expect to use five contracts, one Good Neighbor Agreement, and two agreement modifications,” says the Regional Forest Service press release.