The manager of a 3,000-acre ranch near Monument, surrounded by the breathtaking beauty of forested ridgelines and ravines, has been fighting the good fight against the constant threat of wildfire.
Now, he and other private landowners in the area appear poised to get a whole lot of help.
In a first for Grant County, the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service, in coordination with a group of private landowners, plan to work together on a major forest fuel reduction effort to create a wide fuelbreak protecting hundreds of acres surrounding the Top Road Firewise community above Monument. Firewise is a national program that helps groups of landowners in fire-prone areas improve their defenses against wildfire.