## Community Wildfire Defense Grants

Guy Gifford, Assistant Division Manager for Community Resilience, provided an overview of the Community Wildfire Defense Grant program.

The new grant program was established by Congress to help states implement community wildfire protection plans (CWPPs). The USDA Forest Service (USFS) is the lead agency and established the program and first round of funding, which was held over the late summer and fall of this year. DNR helped the USFS administer the program and solicit applications in Washington State. Grants generally fall into two categories 1) update or create a CWPP or 2) implement actions identified in a CWPP that is less than ten years old. This is the first program established specifically to help support implementation of CWPPs.

In order to eligible, communities must be identified as “at-risk” based on a wildfire risk assessment. Eligible communities must have a CWPP or a Hazard Mitigation Plan with a wildfire extension. Projects such as home assessments, defensible space creation, staff support, building code updates, prescribed fire training, and vegetation and fuels management are allowable expenses. Projects are required to identify a 25% match. Low- income communities were not required to provide matching funds as part of the new grant program.

Washington State partners submitted 45 applications requesting $54M in funding; second nationally behind California. The average request in Washington was $1.3M. If awarded, funding can be spent over five years. Of the 45 applications, 27 were for action items to help implement actions identified in the local CWPP and 18 focused on updating CWPPs. Kittitas and Okanogan Counties had the largest requests with a strong focus on forest health thinning and fuels reduction. Edelweiss is a unique application to help address fire hazard and promote forest health. The funding request for Edelweiss is for $2M to accelerate implementation of additional projects near homes and infrastructure to protect the community.

The applications are being graded and ranked. Western States applications will be finished ranking by December 9, 2022, then they will get combined into a west-wide pool and standardized scoring across all states. Funding should become available early in the next year.

Round two of grant applications will become available late spring 2023. DNR will be conducting webinars to raise awareness and provide technical assistance for applicants, striving to maximize funding coming to Washington.

A member of the committee shared that when applicants submitted directly to the federal government the application process provided an opportunity to include maps and appendices to the application, but the state application process did not allow for those attachments to be included. Guy shared that DNR and partners are aware of this issue. There will be an after action review and this is a topic that will come up in that conversation about how to continue to improve the application process.

See attached slides for additional information. Guy Gifford can be reached at Guy. Gifford@dnr.wa.gov.

## HB1168 Work Group

Rentz provided a brief update on the joint work group. The work group was established in partnership with the Wildland Fire Advisory Committee (WFAC).

The work group has been meeting regularly to provide input about programs associated with implementation of HB1168. Meetings have centered on learning about program work and pass through funding opportunities.