Deadline to apply for Community Wildfire Defense Grant nears

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The deadline to apply for the Community Wildfire Defense Grant (CWDG) is just over a week a way with the deadline for applications set for October 7th.

The Community Wildfire Defense Grants are intended to help at-risk local communities and Tribes plan and reduce the risk against wildfire.

The Community Wildfire Defense Grant helps communities in the wildland urban interface (WUI) implement the three goals of the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy (Cohesive Strategy):

  • Restore and Maintain Landscapes: Landscapes across all jurisdictions are resilient to fire-related disturbances, in accordance with management objectives. 
  • Create Fire Adapted Communities: Human populations and infrastructure can better withstand a wildfire without loss of life and property. 
  • Improve Wildfire Response: All jurisdictions participate in making and implementing safe, effective, efficient risk-based wildfire management decisions. 

The grants are funded through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. There are two primary project types for which the grant provides funding: The development and revision of Community Wildfire Protection Plans, and the implementation of projects described in a Community Wildfire Protection Plan that is less than ten years old. 

Meghan Housewright, Director, Policy Institute at the NFPA said: “One key thing to know is that applicants will need to ground their proposed projects in their Community Wildfire Protection Plans (CWPPs). Communities without a CWPP, or those with a CWPP over 10 years old, can use the grants to develop these plans.”

She added: “The deadline to apply for the CWDG is October 7. However, communities that miss out this year will have an opportunity next year, as the program is set to run for five years. The Infrastructure Act provided a valuable down payment to help lower wildfire risk for millions of homes with significant exposure. Now, it will be up to communities to sustain it. Learn more about the grant program—and download a fact sheet on how the grant money can be used to invest in NFPA resources—at nfpa.org/wildfire.”

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