Cal-Wood Education Center sees growth, progress three years after fire

Dec. 1—Located in the Jamestown foothills since 1982, the Cal-Wood Education Center is no stranger to fires. The impact of one fire in particular, however, is still being felt three years later.

The Calwood Fire broke out on Oct. 17, 2020 and wasn't fully extinguished until mid-November. In that period of time, due to wind and dry conditions, the flames destroyed half of the Cal-Wood Education Center's 1,200-acre property, leaving a tract of dead trees in its wake.

"For us to observe the fire burning through the property, it was just really heartbreaking," said Rafael Salgado, executive director of the Cal-Wood Education Center. "We have a lot of history here teaching kids, and a lot of spots that burned were teaching sites. There are so many features on that side of the property, all those years and years of memories ... they just burned."

The demarcation between the burned and unaffected areas can still be seen from most of the center's buildings today. But now, with three years of recovery under their belt, Cal-Wood staff are turning the event into an opportunity to do even more for the community.

The Cal-Wood Education Center offers outdoor education programs for both kids and adults, most of whom are from Boulder County or the Denver-metro area. Adults who visit tend to focus on volunteer and team building projects, while kids receive lessons on environmental topics like orienteering and forest ecology.

Apart from a short break in January, Cal-Wood operates year-round and serves an average of 5,000 kids annually. Nearly half of those kids, Salgado said, come from low-income households and don't often get the chance to immerse themselves in nature.

The connections that people have formed with Cal-Wood over the years played a big role in keeping the nonprofit going after the fire. Former program participants, as well as several local businesses and nonprofits, jumped in to join volunteer efforts from rebuilding damaged equipment to planting new trees.

"So many people, right after the fire, wanted to know how to help," Salgado said. "A lot of them donated money because they knew it was going to be tough for us to make it and to restore the land."

With so much support from the community, the center is now in a position to start growing. In September, Cal-Wood's board approved its strategic plan for the next three years, which includes expanding to serve more kids and families and finishing trail building projects.

"The last three years, we just survived," Salgado explained. "We were just trying to stay afloat. What we're trying to do now is build capacity. Now, we have a plan, and it's pretty exciting."

Cal-Wood has also expanded its educational scope since the fire, particularly for scientists. Over the past few months, several University of Colorado Boulder students have come to the center to take advanced restoration and ecology courses. The center is currently facilitating a dozen major research projects, all of which launched after the fire.

"Now, there's an amazing classroom that's way more biodiverse than the non-burned area," said Angie Busby, natural resources manager for Cal-Wood. "It's opened up partnerships we didn't have before."

Busby explained that one benefit of doing research at Cal-Wood is that students don't need to wait to receive permits that would be necessary for research in a national forest or park.

"Getting into a new fire was a big opportunity for them," she said of the researchers. "For a lot of their studies, they want to get in right away versus a year or two later, because things change greatly."

The summer after the fire, the center also started hosting public tours of the burned area to educate people about fire and its effects. Those tours continued both last year and this year.

"There's a lot of interest in the community to learn about fire, especially after the Marshall Fire," Salgado said. "People need to understand how fire behaves, but also what to do after a fire. Most people think that fire is bad, but a lot of the time, it's good to have a fire once in a while."

Structural losses from the fire were minimal for Cal-Wood: an outhouse, a trailer, some picnic tables and a few benches. A couple of outhouses and two warming huts are being built now, and last week, staff erected a new sign at the entrance to the center.

Salgado said he hopes people know that Cal-Wood isn't going anywhere.

"People need to be connected to the land, to the mountains, to nature, so they can care for it and protect it in the future," Salgado said. "And that's kind of our mission."