Firewise Communities can:

Make local areas much safer from wildfire risks
Create connections that optimize neighborhood resilience and preparedness
Potentially qualify its members for home-insurance discounts
Potentially qualify for grant funding for safety projects
Develop a neighborhood contact and emergency-alert list
Hold regular meetings to share information and plan events
Promote wildfire education
Have neighborhood walks to note areas that need improvement
Hold evacuation drills
Learn from their local fire departments the best practices for making a neighborhood fire-safe
Organize free Community Chipper Day events to motivate and assist neighbors in creating defensible space

How to Become a Certified Firewise Community

Form a board/committee composed of residents and other stakeholders. Consider inviting reps from your local fire department and the Mendocino County Fire Safe Council.
This group will identify the potential Firewise Community’s size and boundaries. The minimum number of single-family residential units is 8, and the maximum is 2,500.
The group will also identify risk-reduction priorities, a multi-year Action Plan, and ensure that the annual requirements to retain “good standing” status are met. Not all residents need to participate in Firewise activities to be a part of your Firewise Community, as long as the moderate group requirements are fulfilled.
Your Firewise board/committee will work to create a Risk Assessment, with the help of your local fire department and the Mendocino County Fire Safe Council.
A key step is to learn to identify and reduce wildfire risks and hazards. The Mendocino County Fire Safe Council can help to organize a one-day assessment tour of the neighborhood, which will be the board/committee’s primary tool in determining risk-reduction priorities. Risk Assessments are updated every five years.
You may find this Firewise USA® Risk Assessment Template very useful.
An Action Plan is a prioritized list of risk-reduction projects that a Firewise site commits to complete over three years. It includes recommended homeowner actions and education activities.
Action Plans are developed by the Firewise board/committee, and are updated at least every three years. To make the Action Plan simpler to complete, the Mendocino County Fire Safe Council has a list of sample activities that we can help implement.
Firewise USA® requires California Firewise sites to use the template below for their Action Plan.
3-Year Action Plan Template
Each Firewise site is required to have a minimum of one wildfire risk-reduction educational/outreach event annually. An easy way to accomplish this is to take advantage of the Mendocino County Fire Safe Council’s educational programs. Ask our Outreach Coordinator about your various options for this.
An Annual Commitment is required for each Firewise Community to invest one volunteer hour (current monetary equivalent of $31.80 in CA) per year for each home within its boundary. Note: Firewise sites are NOT required to invest or pay any cash to meet this risk-reduction investment obligation.
The volunteer time investment can include board/committee members’ Firewise hours, and time spent by homeowners clearing their properties. Each homeowner must simply spend (and document) at least one hour of work a year on average, investing in reducing wildfire risk. That’s it! If you invest two hours of work, you’ve got your neighbor covered too.
This Annual Commitment can also include attending meetings, consulting with arborists and fire professionals, or regular defensible-space and home-hardening maintenance done by either the homeowner or by professional landscape/tree service contractors.
Tracking volunteer hours can be as simple or as sophisticated as the group decides. For example, Sherwood Firewise, a longstanding Firewise Community in Brooktrails, northwest of Willits, has created an easy, user-friendly way to track volunteer hours, which you can find here and adapt for your own tracking process.
The Mendocino County Fire Safe Council can help you prepare your application, and help you manage the application and renewal processes. You may start an application at any point in the overall process by creating a site profile in the Firewise USA™ portal.
Once all criteria are complete, the electronic application can be submitted. State liaisons will approve applications, with final processing completed by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA).
Then – keep up the good work! Continue to fulfill your Annual Commitment, working with the Mendocino County Fire Safe Council to complete projects in your Action Plan and pursue grant funds to support your project.