Fungal Solutions – Wildfire Limited, a Southwest Colorado company that designs and manufactures landscaping solutions for fire mitigation and erosion reduction using fungi, has plans to open a headquarters and facility in Durango with support from the state’s Rural Jump-Start Program.
“(Joining the program) means that I am able to have an impact on the region, Durango and the surrounding areas,” owner Lauren Czaplicki said. “The Rural Jumpstart program’s acceptance and support of my company has shown me that people – specifically our government – want to adapt to our current climate and keep these mountain communities livable.”
Czaplicki has lived in Southwest Colorado for years, but moved to Durango in 2022 and began doing work in earnest with her company last May, she said.
Fungal Solutions develops fire barriers, wood sponge systems and erosion control systems using local fungal cultures to slow the spread of fires and improve wildfire and drought preparedness. Czaplicki also collaborates with traditional fire mitigation companies, landowners, and landscapers in the region, including Blooming Landscapes and Momentum Tree Experts, on fire mitigation projects.
As she explains it: Fungi can turn wood waste from fire mitigation into living infrastructure.
Czaplicki knits inoculated wood chips together with mycelium to create “wood sponges,” which hold water, build organic soil and make surrounding vegetation and ground fuels wetter and less flammable, she said. When these fungal sponges and berms are placed around trees, along slopes and at property edges, erosion is slowed, monsoon water is retained and cooler and wetter fire-wise zones are created that keep wildfire at “an arm’s length” from homes and structures.
Czaplicki’s services usually cost between $3,000 and $8,000 per property, depending on the landscape and what a client is looking for, she said.
The company will receive $15,000 in grant funding from the Rural Jump-Start Program to support the launch of the Durango headquarters and four years of tax benefits, according to a news release from Gov. Jared Polis’ office.
Czaplicki said the funding and tax breaks will go toward buying a property with a house and several acres to base the company’s headquarters out of; hiring three full-time employees over three years and launching an apprenticeship program that will teach apprentices how to cultivate fungi; and design fungal-based landscape solutions and install wood sponges, berms, and fire barriers for different landscape challenges.
The idea is that those apprentices will eventually be brought on in full-time roles, she said.
The Rural Jump-Start Program, administered by the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade, helps attract new businesses to rural, economically distressed areas of Colorado by offering tax breaks and grants in exchange for creating jobs.
It was created by the General Assembly through SB 15-282 and signed into law by then-Gov. John Hickenlooper on May 13, 2015. The program first began accepting applications in January 2016.
Polis signed bills in 2020, 2021 and 2024 that expanded, extended and updated the program’s eligibility and incentives.
“With a hotter, drier climate, it’s critical that we think differently, and innovations like this are a part of that solution,” Polis said in an interview with The Durango Herald.
The Jump-Start program has attracted 34 active new businesses that are expected to create as many as 700 jobs in rural parts of the state, he said.
Czaplicki said the grant will have a meaningful impact on Southwest Colorado and the Mountain West on the whole as well as on her business.
“I look at the monsoons, and I’m like, ‘I am helping hold on to that water so that my community can have water throughout the season when we need it,’ and that’s just like really impactful and satisfying,” she said. “Without the Rural Jump-Start grant, I don’t think that I could do that, or it would be very challenging, because my company is not like your traditional technology company.”
Polis said the state is excited to bring into the program a company that approaches fire prevention through “novel and organic means” amid an especially active wildfire season in the state.
Six large, active fires had collectively consumed over 211,000 acres of Colorado land as of Thursday. Southwest Colorado has been battling the Gold Mountain Fire near Ouray and the Ferris Fire northwest of Dolores since late June.
“With all the increased risk of fires, it’s becoming more important than ever before for us to be able to provide assistance for people who want to protect their homes, who want to protect communities, and that’s exactly what this fungal solutions technology does,” Polis said.
The jobs that will be created in Southwest Colorado as a result of the planned Fungal Solutions headquarters is a highlight of the company joining the program, Polis said.
“We look at job creation, and first and foremost, we look at the salaries of those jobs,” he said. “For an early stage company, $15,000 can make a big difference.”
The Region 9 Economic Development District of Southwest Colorado is a sponsoring entity for the company, and will work with the business to help ensure its success, the release said.
“Region 9 Economic Development was happy to sponsor Fungal Solutions – Wildfire Ltd. as a Rural Jump-Start Company in La Plata County,” Region 9 Executive Director Laura Lewis Marchino said in the release. “… Finding and supporting businesses that offer unique products or services in our region is one of the best parts of my job.”
Czaplicki has already been looking at plots of land in La Plata County and hopes to be able to open the headquarters within the next year. Though the company currently focuses on Colorado wildfire mitigation, she hopes to eventually expand its reach to the entire Mountain West.
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