West 2.2. Tasks 1-9

Coordinate and support activities to achieve and maintain fire adapted communities.

1. Synchronize mitigation, fire education, prevention, and hazardous fuels reduction program activities that will create Fire Adapted Communities. Also support FAC Coalition work and that of other organizations and programs with similar/related goals at the state, tribal, federal and local levels. Agencies should work cooperatively, with complementary goals and actions among programs.

2. Expand scope of existing grant and cost share programs and pursue additional revenue sources for private land work to strategically reduce issues relating to transference of risk and make communities more fire adapted in areas of moderate, high and extremely high wildfire risk. Projects prioritized in CWPPs/Tribal equivalents, both in and around communities and "middle lands" further from communities, should receive priority. Use completed risk and hazards assessments such as the Westwide Risk Assessment (state and private), Regional Ecosystem Assessments (BLM) , State Forest Assessments (state and private), CWPP risk assessments (state, private, Federal) and/or local risk and hazard assessments to prioritize communities for hazardous fuels reduction treatment.

3. Continue and expand the use of grants and agreements to build collaborative capacity to develop CWPPs/Tribal equivalents to implement collaboratively developed projects and on-th-ground treatments at the local level. Additional assistance should be provided, as needed, to disadvantaged populations (i.e. elderly, low income, etc. ).

4. Negotiate alignment of USDA and DOI hazardous fuels work with FAC/CWPP/Tribal equivalent strategies. Support on-the-ground fuels hazard reduction projects identified through CWPPs, regardless of ownership.

5. Develop and disseminate best practices and sample wildfire zoning ordinances, which require the creation and maintenance of defensible space around homes and communities. Develop and disseminate best practices and sample WUI fire, building, subdivision, and development codes. Inform county commissioners, planning and fire departments, and code enforcement divisions on the application and enforcement of applicable regulations, including the need for continued manintenance of areas where fuels have been reduced. Communicate the firesafe building message to builders and developers.

6. Work at the local level to motivate homeowners through FAC and similar programs. Work with insurance partners to identify best practices to incentivize adoption of Firewise Communities/USA recognition criteria or equivalent and NFPA standards and ICC codes or equivalent for fuels reduction and maintenance of reduced fuels over time.

7. Work with EPA and the state systems (Departments of Environmental Quality and State Foresters) to replicate successful state-level burning regulations and the use of burning permit systems throughout the Western region. Encourage interagency coordination to minimize smoke impacts from prescribed fires and fires that are not actively suppressed, including direct coordination with Tribes, local governments and air districts.

8. Encourage and support social, economic, and ecological science research that will provide information needed to develop and carry out the education programs that will be most effective in motivating and/or mobilizing communities to become fire adapted. Collect and disseminate studies on how to strategically locate fuels treatments to effectively reduce wildfire risk to communities.

9. Engage social science researchers to how to motivate people to take action to prepare for disasters, individually and in groups. Foster and support research to determine what educational approaches and messages, financial incentives and/or disincentives, psychological considerations, and other factors and conditions are most effective in stimulating action to achieve and maintain fire adapted communities.