The Southwest Forest Health and Wildfire Prevention Act of 2004 established institutes in Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. CFRI is chartered and housed in the Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship in the Warner College of Natural Resources at Colorado State University.

Citizen science collaborative forest reconstruction work as part of the Uncompahgre Plateau Public Lands Partnership created CFRI model of actionable knowledge.

Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program funded for Front Range and Uncompahgre Plateau. CFRI joins the partnership and engages with broader forestry and federal stakeholder groups.

Colorado Department of Natural Resources Wildfire Risk Reduction Grant Program begins and CFRI engages with non-federal land managers around the state.

Building on the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy framework, CFRI began expanding in staff and engagement across fire adapted communities and fire response actionable strategies, as well as enhancing our strength of bridging the science and management of resilient forest landscapes. Integrating across all three legs of the Cohesive Strategy opened exciting new opportunities for CFRI and our partners.

CFRI worked extensively with a range of collaborative partners to develop a locally relevant restoration framework called RMRS-GTR-373 that has become the basis of forest management on the Colorado Front Range.

The historic 2020 fire year delivered extreme fire activity in Colorado, including the largest fire on record. This increased the need for the CFRI post-fire monitoring work and expanded the scope of our research.

All three SWERI began working on a national project from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to increase the capacity for cross-boundary forest treatment and wildfire data management and application to help managers apply more effective hazardous fuels reduction, forest restoration, and wildfire management across US forests.