Homeowners

Wildfires

By working together, communities can help protect their homes and neighborhoods from wildfires. These resources are a great place to start.

Preparing a Community Wildfire Protection Plan: A Handbook for Wildland-Urban Interface Communities
This Handbook is intended to provide communities with a concise, step-by-step guide to use in developing a Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP), as recommended in the Healthy Forest Restoration Act of 2003.

Community Guide to Preparing and Implementing a Community Wildfire Protection Plan
With at least 51,612 communities at risk across the United States, there is still much work to be done. This Community Guide is intended to assist CWPP participants by providing innovative strategies, case studies, and additional resources to develop, implement, and monitor their CWPPs. The minimum requirements for a CWPP are defined in HFRA with more detailed guidance provided in the publication Preparing a Community Wildfire Protection Plan: A Handbook for Wildland-Urban Interface Communities.

These guides are not legal documents, although the recommendations contained here carefully conform to both the spirit and the letter of the HFRA. The outline provided offers one of several possible approaches to planning. We hope it will prove useful in helping at-risk communities establish recommendations and priorities that protect their citizens, homes, and essential infrastructure and resources from the destruction of catastrophic wildfire.

Frequently Asked Questions about Community Wildfire Protection Plan

Additional Web Resources:

• Wildlife and Community Planning
  • Community Wildfire and Protection Plan
  • Healthy Forest Restoration Act of 2003 (HFRA)
  • Healthy Forests Initiative (HFI)
  • The Fire Safe Council
  • Firewise
  • Project Wildfire
  
  
• Collaborative Natural Resources Management
  • Red Lodge Clearinghouse
  • University of Michigan
  
  
• Sampling of Regional and State Community Wildfire Planning Resources
  • National Database of State and Local Wildfire Hazard Mitigation Programs
  • USFS Fire Sciences Lab (including latest research on wildland-urban fire)
  • A Handbook for Developing Community Wildfire Protection Plans in Accordance with Title of The Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003 Navajo County, U.S. Forest Service Southwest Region, and the White Mountain Natural Resources Working Group.
  
  
• Examples of Wildfire Protection Plans
  • Applegate Fire Plan
  • Lower Mattole Fire Plan
  • Community Wildfire Protection Plan For the California Portion of the Lake Tahoe Basin (2004)
  • Missoula County, MT Community Wildfire Protection Plan (2005)
  • Sunriver, Oregon Community Wildfire Protection Plan

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