Conservation Community Wildfire Protection Planning
In 2006, we began work on a Conservation-focused Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CCWPP) template with a licensed professional forester, fire scientists, fire ecologists, Federal and State agencies and conservation partners. The CCWPP guidebook which resulted from this effort incorporates key conservation principles in conjunction with fire safety objectives and is used to provide training to communities so that they can develop their own conservation-based fire plans.
The CCWPP is created for a variety
of reasons, mainly:
- To identify priority projects to reduce risks and hazards from wildfire while protecting conservation values in the planning area. Goals are to be achieved principally through prioritization and implementation of fuel hazard reduction, community education, and fire-suppression projects and activities.
- To provide community priorities for conservation-based fuel reduction on public lands.
- To provide conservation-based fire safety educational information to residents of the planning area.
- To provide a positive balance among fire prevention, conservation, and wildlife protection.
- To provide a guidance document for future actions of the of the community and local emergency service providers.
- To coordinate fire protection strategies across property boundaries.
- To integrate private land management goals with community needs and expectations for fire safety.
- And to create ecologically sustainable biomass utilization and removal projects within the planning area.
Community Wildfire Protection Plans (CWPP) are required in order to meet the requirements of the National Fire Plan and other government funding sources which can provide a community with the necessary resources to complete the objectives identified in the CWPP. The CWPP is also an important document in providing community direction for federal lands management within the planning area.