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Wildfire Risk to Communities

Wildfire Risk to Communities

Helping inform communities about their relative wildfire risk

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Recovery & Rebuilding

Restore the landscape and community following a wildfire.

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Post-fire recovery efforts can affect susceptibility.

About Recovery & Rebuilding

It can take months and even years to recover from the emotional, financial, and ecological impacts of a wildfire. The healing process for a community requires extensive resources and support.

Landscape stabilization and rebuilding homes and communities following a wildfire can be stressful and overwhelming. While immediate action is needed to address landscape rehabilitation, infrastructure repairs, post-fire flooding mitigation, and neighborhood restoration, long-term care is required to ensure personal well-being, financial stability, community health, and a renewed sense of place. Disaster recovery can also be approached with equity in mind.

Pre-fire mitigation steps—such as wildfire preparedness, ignition-resistant homes, land use planning, and equitable risk reduction activities—can reduce the work required to recover post-fire.


After the Fire video courtesy of the Chumstick Coalition.

Explore your community’s risk.

Community Tools

Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network

The Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network connects and supports people and communities who are striving to live more safely with wildfire. The purpose of FAC Net is to exchange information, collaborate to enhance the practice of fire adaptation, and work together and at multiple scales to help communities live safely with fire. This includes embracing resiliency concepts and taking action before, during and after wildfires. They offer a Fire Adapted Communities Self-Assessment Tool (FAC SAT) to help communities assess their level of fire adaptation and track their capacity to live safely with fire over time

Go to program webpage

AIM: Action, Implementation & Mitigation

The Action, Implementation, and Mitigation Program (AIM) seeks to increase local capacity and support for wildfire risk reduction activities in high risk communities. Selected participants in AIM will receive technical and financial support and become affiliate members of Coalitions and Collaboratives, Inc. (COCO).

go to program webpage

FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant Program

The Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) manages several grant opportunities for wildfire in their Hazard Mitigation Assistance program. The Hazard Mitigation Grant Program Post-Fire provides mitigation assistance for Fire Management Assistance declarations on or after October 5, 2018.

go to program webpage

Community Mitigation Assistance Team (CMAT)

Community Mitigation Assistance Teams are a national interagency resource designed to work collaboratively with local partners to build sustainable mitigation programs focused on community fire adaptation actions on the ground. A CMAT works with communities at high risk of wildfire to analyze their mitigation programs and barriers, develop workable solutions to help move mitigation forward, share best mitigation practices for achieving outcomes, and build successful partnerships.

go to program webpage

NACo County Wildfire Playbook

The National Association of Counties (NACo) produced this county leadership guide to help communities become more fire adapted and learn to live with wildland fire. The playbook has been designed by county commissioners, for county commissioners, as they endeavor to fortify and protect communities from high severity impacts of wildland fire.

Go to program webpage

After the Flames

After the Flames is a curated list of post-fire recovery and restoration information. The resources are useful for communities as they work to establish plans and priorities that protect citizens, homes, essential infrastructure, and resources from the destruction that occurs after a catastrophic wildfire. After the Flames is an initiative of Coalitions and Collaboratives, Inc. (COCO).

go to program webpage
See all community tools

Research & Science

  • American Psychological Association. (2021). Disasters and Response.
  • Federal Emergency Management Agency. (2019). After the Fire. Emmitsburg, MD: U.S. Fire Administration.
  • Jerolleman, A. (2019). Disaster Justice for All: The Need for a More Equitable and Just Recovery Lens. Boulder, CO: Natural Hazards Center.
  • Oregon State University Extension Service. (2006). Wildfire Recovery: Ways to Move Forward. Wildfire Recovery, 1(1). Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University Extension Service.
  • Schumann RL, Mockrin M,  Syphard A, Whittaker J, Price O, Gaither CJ, Emrich CT, & Butsic V. (2020).Wildfire recovery as a “hot moment” for creating fire-adapted communities. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 42. 101354.

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