Download Wildfire
Robinette Stiles
Wildland fire is a natural phenomenon and is necessary for the health of some ecosystems. However, when these fires get out of control and threaten communities, they become a serious hazard. Defending against wildfire involves understanding that despite best efforts to reduce the risk, it will continue to be a threat.
Wildfire mitigation actions are on-the-ground treatments of properties implemented to reduce the chance of a wildfire causing damage. The Colorado State Forest Service (CSFS) is the lead state agency for fuels mitigation expertise in Colorado and an excellent resource for residents who want to gain more information and take steps to decrease the threat of wildfire where it matters most to them.
Remember that protecting a home, property and a community from wildfire is not a one-time effort. It is a process and requires ongoing participation, maintenance and shared responsibility. The following programs and resources are tools that can help residents and communities begin the process of reducing their wildfire risk.
Wildfires affect everyone. They can spread fast and harm us. Wildfires are getting bigger and more dangerous. More people are living in areas at risk for wildfires, but we can take action to prepare.
You may have to leave your home quickly to stay safe. Know where you will go, how you will get there, and where you will stay. Have different escape routes from your home and community. Practice these routes so everyone in your household is familiar with them. Be sure to understand how your community will respond to a wildfire.
The Red Cross has created digital resources and videos on wildfires and other common hazards, including this video from our Prepare with Pedro series. These tools are an age-appropriate way for families and educators to help children be better prepared in an emergency. Please visit redcross.org/youthprep.
In early 2023, the USDA Forest Service added 11 additional landscapes. This announcement followed a year of progress in collaborating with partners across 10 initial landscapes to address wildfire risk to infrastructure and communities.
Overgrown forests, a warming climate, and a growing number of homes in the wildland-urban interface, following more than a century of rigorous fire suppression, have all contributed to what is now a full-blown wildfire and forest health crisis.
The Forest Service is working with partners to focus fuels and forest health treatments more strategically and at the scale of the problem, using the best available science as a guide. Through investments from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, wildfire risk reduction work will occur on 21 landscapes across 134 firesheds in the western U.S. where projects are ready to begin or to expand.
NOAA's National Weather Service works in conjunction with federal and state wildland managers to protect lives and property in and around America's wildlands. This site will help you prepare, be aware and act early if a wildfire comes your way. A list of partners can be found on the National Interagency Fire Center website. If you, or someone you know, have been a victim of a wildfire, please share your story so we can prevent others from becoming a victim. When you write, please note that NWS has permission to use your story and, if possible, let us know the town and state you were in and the year the event took place.
Together, the Wildfire Programs Advisory Council will work to recommend and implement policies that will help prevent and better respond to wildfire, and create more fire resilient communities and landscapes in Oregon.
It's widely known that wildfire smoke is bad for your health, but a group of researchers recently found a known carcinogen in California wildfire ash, raising concerns about just how harmful it could be to breathe the air near a blaze.
"Up until that point, if we had a wildfire, I was pretty cavalier about it, to be truthful. We get the alerts and I would still go outside and exercise, thinking exercise was the better factor for my health," Fendorf said.
Though the researchers only found hexavalent chromium in samples of wildfire ash and not wildfire smoke itself, Fendorf said they inferred that it was likely also present in the smoke. He said the team intends to collect samples from wildfire smoke in the future to test that hypothesis.
Metals such as chromium naturally exist in the environment, such as in rocks like serpentinite. In this case, Fendorf said, the wildfires' intense heat appears to have transformed chromium into its hexavalent state.
The Office of the State Fire Marshal's Community Wildfire Preparedness and Mitigation Division collaborates with federal, state, and local agencies, tribes, non-profit entities, and stakeholders to prepare California communities against wildfires. CAL FIRE develops strategies, conducts hazard inspections, and provides education and grants for wildfire prevention efforts, fostering prepared and resilient communities.
Decades following the 1964 Hanley and Nuns fires, there were a few large damaging wildfires in Sonoma County. This abruptly changed in 2017 when the Sonoma Complex fires forever changed our county. Since then, every fire season has brought traumatic and devastating fires, and wildfire has become a day-to-day reality for County residents. To address this reality, the County is undergoing the process of updating our Community Wildfire Protection Plan.
Defined by the 2003 United States Congress Healthy Forests Restoration Act, the goal of a CWPP is to enhance efforts to protect communities, watersheds, and other at-risk lands from catastrophic wildfire events. A CWPP is not a regulatory document, but provides wildfire hazard and risk assessments, community descriptions, options for addressing issues of structural vulnerability to wildfire (Home Hardening), and provides a prioritized list of projects which, if implemented, can serve to reduce wildfire hazards.
A CWPP is one of the best tools we have to make progress in adapting our county to a wildfire-prone environment. The CWPP will contain hazard and risk analyses and, using a collaborative model, will suggest projects that can efficiently reduce the risk of loss of life, property loss, and environmental damage.
Enter your address or zoom into a location on the map to get an assessment of wildfire risk for that location. For more detailed information on the assessment or wildfire risk at a specific location, go to the Risk Explorer.
The Texas Wildfire Risk Assessment Portal (TxWRAP) is a free, easy-to-use website with information, data and resources to help homeowners and communities understand, identify and reduce their wildfire risk.
This document, originally developed by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the California Department of Public Health (CDPH), is designed to help local public health officials prepare for smoke events, to take measures to protect the public when smoke is present, and communicate with the public about wildfire smoke and health.
A Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) is a planning document that results from a collaborative planning effort. The process brings together a diverse group of stakeholders including local government, the Colorado State Forest Service (CSFS), local fire protection districts, and community members. The effort identifies and prioritizes measures to protect life, property, and critical infrastructure in the wildland urban interface (WUI) during a wildfire event. The CWPP analyzes areas of interest including hazard mitigation, wildfire response ability, community preparedness, and structural ignitability. All Colorado CWPPs must meet the Colorado State Forest Service CWPP Minimum Standards.
By actively implementing this plan, residents, communities, and organizations in Boulder County will significantly increase and improve wildfire mitigation and preparedness efforts in advance of wildfires to help reduce the high risks and enormous costs associated with wildfire in Boulder County.
In April 2023, the Boulder County Community Planning and Permitting wildfire team applied for and was awarded a Colorado State Forest Service Incentives for Local Government grant (ILG) and a Colorado State Forest Service Healthy Forests and Vibrant Act grant (HFVA) to hire a professional consultant to conduct a county wide wildland fire risk assessment, and facilitate community engagement events and develop the CWPP, which will include a story map and recommendation project tracking application and dashboard.
CWPPs help prepare communities for wildfire. If your community is located in or near the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) and there is a demonstrated wildfire risk, a CWPP can be excellent tool to gain community support to raise awareness about wildfire threat and gain support to mitigate hazards.
Communities benefit from a CWPP by learning about how to be more prepared for wildfire. Additionally, the CWPP can influence where and how state, federal, and local monies are spent on hazardous fuels reduction. Communities with CWPPs can compete for public funding to implement hazardous fuels reduction projects. Through this process, communities can work cooperatively with technical and public safety experts to address wildfire hazards in their communities.
In April 2023, the Boulder County Community Planning and Permitting wildfire team applied for and was awarded a Colorado State Forest Service Incentives for Local Government (ILG) grant and a Colorado State Forest Service Healthy Forests and Vibrant Act (HFVA) grant to help fund hiring a professional consultant to conduct a county wide wildland fire risk assessment, facilitate community engagement events and develop the CWPP.
CWPPs help protect and prepare communities in the event of a wildfire. If your community resides in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) and you believe there is a risk of wildfire, a CWPP can be excellent tool to gain community support to raise awareness about wildfire threat and gain support to mitigate hazards. The most successful CWPPs are those with grass roots efforts.
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