Prioritizing Communities for Wildfire Defense Grants

This website is for local communities, tribes, state forestry agencies, government, community partners, and others interested in visualizing eligible and prioritized communities for the Community Wildfire Defense Grant (CWDG) program. The purpose of the CWDG program is to assist at-risk local communities and tribes in the wildland urban interface (WUI) to plan and reduce their risk against wildfire, as they implement the three goals of the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy:

• Restore and maintain landscapes, to build up their resilience to fire-related disturbances.
• Create fire adapted communities that can better withstand a wildfire without loss of life and property
• Improve wildfire response, to make and implement safe, effective, efficient, and risk-based wildfire management decisions.

The CWDG program prioritizes at-risk communities in an area identified as having high or very high wildfire hazard potential, are low-income, and/or have been impacted by a severe disaster. More details on the CWDG program can be found here. Follow the story map below to visualize the elements that make up CWDG eligibility and prioritization.

The CWDG program uses Risk to Homes and Wildfire Hazard Potential to measure “at-risk” communities and “wildfire hazard potential”. Both variables are derived from Wildfire Risk to Communities, a national risk assessment created by the U.S. Forest Service. Both variables have utility for CWDG grants, depending on the goals of the proposed activities. Since risk is a relative measure, a community’s risk may be different when compared to its parent state versus the entire nation. For both variables, state and national ranks are provided. Applicants and others are encouraged to use the variable and rank that best tells the story for the community.

Communities with a National Wildfire Hazard Potential rank (compared to others nationally) greater than 67% are considered “at-risk” and eligible for CWDG grants.  Communities with a national Wildfire Hazard Potential greater than or equal to 84% would be considered having “high or very high WHP” and be prioritized in the CWDG Program.

The maps below show "at-risk" eligible counties (left) and county subdivisions (right) as light red. "At-risk with high or very high WHP" prioritized counties and county subdivisions are symbolized as dark red.

Communities with a State Wildfire Hazard Potential rank (compared to other counties or county subdivisions within the state) greater than 67% are considered “at-risk” and eligible for CWDG grants.  Communities with a State Wildfire Hazard Potential ranking greater than or equal to 84% would be considered having “high or very high WHP” and be prioritized in the CWDG Program.

The maps below show "at-risk" eligible counties (left) and county subdivisions (right) as light red. "At-risk with high or very high WHP" prioritized counties and county subdivisions are symbolized as dark red.

Communities with a National Risk to Homes (compared to others nationally) greater than 40% are considered “at-risk” and eligible for CWDG grants.  Communities with national Risk to Homes ranking greater than or equal to 70% would be considered having “high or very high wildfire risk” and be prioritized in the CWDG Program.

The maps below show "at-risk" eligible counties (left) and county subdivisions (right) as light red. "At-risk with high or very high WHP" prioritized counties and county subdivisions are symbolized as dark red.

Communities with a State Risk to Homes (compared to other counties or county subdivisions within the state) greater than 40% are considered “at-risk” and eligible for CWDG grants.  Communities with state Risk to Homes ranking greater than or equal to 70% would be considered having “high or very high wildfire risk” and be prioritized in the CWDG Program.

The maps below show "at-risk" eligible counties (left) and county subdivisions (right) as light red. "At-risk with high or very high WHP" prioritized counties and county subdivisions are symbolized as dark red.

“Low income” is derived from the latest (2020) U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey data. Counties are considered “low income” if the median household income is less than 80% of the median household income of its parent state.

Low Income can be used to demonstrate that a community is (a) “underserved” and eligible to request a match waiver, and (b) “low-income” and eligible for scoring prioritization in the CWDG program.  The maps below highlight communities (counties on the left and county subdivisions on the right) as yellow if they are considered "low income".

For the map below, a community has been classified and colored in dark green as having been “impacted by severe disaster” if it has been included within a listing of FEMA disaster declarations in the last ten years (2012 –2022).  

Communities that have been "impacted by severe disaster" according to the definition above will get scoring prioritization by the CWDG program.

The U.S. Forest Service may waive the cost-sharing requirement for a CWDG project that serves an underserved community. To apply for a cost-share waiver, an applicant must demonstrate that the community is considered disadvantaged, defined as either: (a) having at least one census tract identified as “disadvantaged” in the  Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool  (CEJST), or (b) meeting the low-income definition.  In addition, nationally recognized Tribes and Pacific Islands are eligible for a match waiver.  The maps below show counties (map on left) and county subdivisions (map on right) that contain at least one disadvantaged community (census tract).  Zoom into the map to view specific census tracts that have been designated as CEJST disadvantaged communities.