New Fire Planning Guidance to Help Your Community
Protecting communities and natural resources from wildfire can't be accomplished by any one person or entity. The key is collaboration. Collaboration is the first requirement of a community wildfire protection plan developed under the Healthy Forest Restoration Act. Working together to identify and pursue a pathway to success can be accomplished in your neighborhood. To that end, the newly developed Community Guide to Preparing and Implementing a Community Wildfire Protection Plan can help. The guide is intended to complement the original Preparing a Community Wildfire Protection Plan: A Handbook for Wildland-Urban Interface Communities.
While moving through the planning and implementation process outlined in the original handbook, protection-plan participants asked for more information or advice on developing a successful protection plan. In response to this feedback, a group of local, state, federal and non-governmental stakeholders have developed a supplemental guide to the handbook. Through these plans, nearly 4,800 communities across the nation have developed collaborative strategies to reduce their risk from wildfire and restore healthier, more resilient conditions in their surrounding forests.
However, with at least 51,612 communities at risk across the United States, there is still a significant amount of work to be done. This new community guide is intended to assist participants working through the protection-plan process by providing lessons learned, tips on collaboration and risk assessment, as well as a new section on monitoring and evaluation. Community members will benefit from the new resources, case studies, and innovative strategies to develop, implement and revitalize their protection plans.
A draft of the community guide is available for download at www.forestsandrangelands.gov/communities.
