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

The Act 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 these three priorities can be found in the Notices of Funding Opportunity (NOFOs) below.   

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.
• The implementation of projects described in a Community Wildfire Protection Plan that is less than ten years old.

See the Grant primer.

Funding for western states: USDA-FS-2022-CWDG-CWSF

Funding for tribes: USDA-FS-2022-CWDG-TRIBES