Governor Polis Announces FEMA Authorized Federal Fire Management Assistance Grant for Willow Fire in Lake County

DENVER - Today, Governor Polis announced that Colorado has been authorized for a FEMA Fire Management Assistance Grant (FMAG) for the Willow Fire burning in Lake County. The Governor first declared a verbal disaster emergency for the Willow Fire on Monday, June 29. The Willow Fire has burned over 4,000 acres, and put more than 1,500 people under mandatory evacuation orders and another 2,100 under pre-evacuation orders. The Willow Fire is 1% contained.

"This Federal Fire Management Assistance Grant will help our state take all necessary actions to protect Coloradans and communities. Protecting lives, property, and businesses is our top priority. I thank all the firefighters across the state who spent the holiday weekend bravely facing the flames to keep us safe. I remind Coloradans of our responsibility to be fire safe; we owe it to the firefighters putting themselves in harm's way to prevent new fires from starting," said Governor Polis.

The authorization makes FEMA funding available to pay 75% of the State's eligible firefighting costs under an approved grant for managing, mitigating, and controlling designated fires. These grants do not provide assistance to individual home or business owners and do not cover other infrastructure damage caused by the fire.

The Governor's verbal declaration from June 29th activated the State Emergency Operations Plan and directed the Department of Public Safety and its Divisions of Homeland Security and Emergency Management (DHSEM) and Fire Prevention and Control (DFPC) to take responsibility for all response, recovery, and mitigation efforts on the Willow Fire. This support includes State and interagency engines and handcrews, DFPC and interagency aviation resources, and incident management personnel and overhead to assist in management of the fire and containment efforts. In addition, DFPC is supporting Lake County and the incident with administrative and financial oversight and intelligence products that include imaging, mapping, and fire behavior modeling and projects. DHSEM is directly supporting the Lake County Emergency Manager and the emergency operations center with on-site area field managers. The Governor's declaration also authorized the National Guard to assist in response efforts.

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