Colorado wins $1.9 million Wildfire Smoke Preparedness in Community Buildings grant

Smoke from enormous wildfires in Canada last summer sent choking clouds of smoke over much of the nation, including Colorado.

On May 20, 2023, the Colorado Department of Health and Environment issued an air quality health advisory for Northeast Colorado.

Denver, for a time, registered in the top-five worst air quality ratings in the world due to the smoke, according to IQAir, “the world's largest free real-time air quality information platform.”

“After the wildfires in Maui, the wildfire smoke that blanketed the East Coast last summer, and the many devastating wildfires in the West, we are all aware of the very real health impacts of smoke as well as the critical importance of smoke preparedness,” said EPA Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe in a news release Tuesday. “EPA is providing more than $10 million in grant funding that will help provide important public health protections in communities across our country, especially in those communities who have been overburdened by smoke pollution for far too long.”

In a release Wednesday, Congressman Joe Neguse, Gov. Jared Polis, Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper “applauded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) announcement that the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) will receive $1.9 million in federal funding” from the program.

“The Wildfire Smoke Preparedness in Community Buildings grant program is a new federal program to enhance community wildfire smoke preparedness by providing grants to states, federally recognized Tribes, public preschools, local educational agencies, and nonprofit organizations," according to the release. "Projects are designed to assess, prevent, control, or abate wildfire smoke hazards in community buildings that serve the public, and that serve disadvantaged communities or vulnerable populations.”