Firewise USA
Firewise Community Planning
Neighbors helping neighbors–this is what Firewise USA® is all about. Residents join together as a Firewise site and take actions to prepare themselves, their homes and their properties against the threat of wildfire. They look out for one another and provide those in need of assistance with help in emergency preparation.
What do Firewise communities do?
- Get to know one another and develop a contact list for the neighborhood.
- Hold regular meetings to share information and plan events.
- Promote wildfire education.
- Hold evacuation drills.
- Hold a neighborhood walk to note areas that need improvement.
- Report serious hazards to your local fire department.
- Encourage participation in an annual Chipper Day event.
What are the benefits?
Firewise sites promote a culture of readiness and action that will save lives and homes in the event of a wildfire. Working together to identify risks and solve problems, the neighborhood take on projects that may be overwhelming alone. Neighborhood clean-up days and evacuation drills turn burdensome and scary challenges into communal events.
We work directly with each Firewise site to inform residents about personal preparedness and the best practices for hardening homes and creating fire-smart lawns. If most homeowners in a neighborhood just do some work to clean up their yards and fireproof their homes, the whole community is much less vulnerable to fire. An active Firewise site is nationally recognized as a fire-adapted community.
How do I start a Firewise Community?
Firewise USA® is a voluntary program that provides a framework to help neighbors get organized, find direction, and take action to increase the ignition resistance of their homes and community. How does the Firewise USA® program work?
Organize It
Form a board/committee that’s comprised of residents and other applicable wildfire stakeholders. Consider inviting the local fire department, state forestry agency, elected officials, emergency manager, and if applicable the property management company to participate. This group will collaborate on identifying the site’s boundary and size. Firewise sites need to have a minimum of 8 individual single family dwelling units and are limited to a maximum of 2,500. Multiple sites can be located within a single large master-planned community/HOA.
Plan It
Obtain a written wildfire risk assessment from your state forestry agency or fire department. The assessment should be a community-wide view that identifies areas of successful wildfire risk reduction and areas where improvements could be made. Emphasis should be on the general conditions of homes and related home ignition zones. The assessment is a living document and needs to be updated every five years.
- Contact the Placer County Regional Firewise Coordinator to learn more about the requirements and how to get started
- Some states use the Firewise USA template. (PDF)
Your board/committee will develop an action plan - a prioritized list of risk reduction projects/investments for the participating site, along with suggested homeowner actions and education activities that participants will strive to complete annually, or over a period of multiple years. Action plans should be updated at a minimum of at least every three years.
Do It
Host an outreach event and work with neighbors on addressing items in the action plan. These efforts will go towards your site’s annual wildfire risk reduction investment.
- Find examples (PDF) of activities that count towards your investment.
- Use our volunteer hourly worksheet(PDF) to collect information from residents in your community
At a minimum, each site is required to annually invest the equivalent of one volunteer hour per dwelling unit in wildfire risk reduction actions. If your site has identified 100 homes within its boundary, than 100 hours of work or the monetary equivalent, based on the independent sector value of volunteer time, need to be completed for that year.
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To find out if you reside within a Firewise Community
Visit - https://placer.maps.arcgis.com/