Forestry

Welcome to Fort Collins, Colorado, an annual Tree City, USA award recipient for the last 32 years. Our staff prides itself in its commitment to maintaining our urban forest. The Forestry staff, within the Forestry Division, maintains more than 40,000 city property trees.

Posted 11/10/11: The Parks & Forestry Departments would like to thank you for your continued patience while we continue our efforts to clean up branches and prune/cut City trees that were damaged during the October snow storm. We are currently concentrating our efforts on potentially dangerous limbs that are still hanging in the trees throught town. We are hoping to have the majority of these issues resolved by the end of the week of November 18. Once the more dangerous limbs are resolved, Forestry will begin a grid-type phase to methodically work through town in an effort to remove the remaining storm damaged limbs in City trees, including those in the various City parks. This phase will take several months to accomplish, as weather will certainly be a factor. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Parks at 970-221-6660.

In the meantime, please obey the safety zones (cones/safety tape/barricade) that have been established in various parks, which identify dangerous areas due to hanging limbs. Alta Vista Park and Leisure Park are both temporarily closed, due to the limb hazards; they will be reopened when the hazards have been mitigated.

If you have a privately owned tree with damage, it will be your responsibility to have your tree pruned or cut down, depending on the damage it sustained. Click for a list of qualified Arborists. There is also information available on what you can do to Care for a Storm Damaged Tree.

If you have concerns with the tree branch removal process, please contact the Streets Department at 970-221-6615, or go to Streets web page.

Tree Planting at Spring Canyon Park

Feel free to contact Forestry (970)221-6660 regarding the following: Services on City Trees and Property Tree pruning, removal and requests Tree planting, questions and requests Hazard tree identification and inspection Insect and disease identification and control Tree work permits on City property (pruning, removal and planting) Trees blocking traffic signs and signals General Services Arborist licensing General information, literature and presentations on trees (City Park Tree Tour, Notable Tree Tour, Champion Trees etc) Tree mulch program Tree insect and disease notification (Dutch Elm Disease, Mountain Pine Beetle and Ips Beetle) Private hazard trees threatening public property Development review Arbor Day program Memorial tree program

Some Frequently Asked Questions

Is there a place to drop off tree limbs I've pruned from my tree? The City does not accept tree limbs or any yard waste. However, there are some local business that do accept yard waste and tree limbs for recycling.

I cut down my pine tree that had Mountain Pine Beetle, what do I do with the wood? There are three options: 1) You can have a company come to your house and chip all the wood and then use the mulch yourself, or have that company haul it away. 2) You can take all the wood to the Larimer County Landfill to have it buried. You need to let them know it's infested wood, so please contact them at 970-498-5760 to find out what to do when you get to the landfill. 3) You can strip the bark from the wood, and then use the wood as you wish; but this is a tedious process and may not be worth the work. In addition, the bark would still have to be taken to the landfill.