Working with communities to reduce wildfire risks through improved land use planning, compelling communication, and applied research.
Working with communities across the country, Community Planning Assistance for Wildfire (CPAW) provides land use planning solutions, communications assistance, and customized research to better understand and manage wildfire-prone areas and reduce risks.
We envision communities that are better prepared to thrive in a world with increasing wildfire risk.
What we do
Project & Land-use planning
Customized research
Capacity building
Where we work
We work with and learn from communities at all scales and sizes across the U.S.
Resources
Community tools
Reports
Videos
Our Impact
80+
communities impacted in 14 states
12
Forest Service WCS Landscapes benefited from training & resources
26
communities adopted new land use codes & plans
12,000+
people reached through trainings, presentations, & events
Sign up for our newsletter the Ignition Point
The work from CPAW has been instrumental in demonstrating clear evidence for why adoption of wildfire plans and codes is necessary.”
Cathie Pagano | Gunnison County, Colorado
CPAW Featured Videos
The cost of retrofitting a home for wildfire resistance
Retrofitting a home for wildfire resistance can cost as little as $2,000, making this approach an effective risk reduction strategy for communities.
A new approach for wildfire policy
A new report from the Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission recommends transformative approaches needed to overcome the wildfire crisis.
Updates to Wildfire Risk to Communities
The latest climate data and methodology updates to wildfirerisk.org reveal that more than one-third of the U.S. population live in counties with high wildfire risk.
Wildfires destroy thousands of structures each year
Explore the number of structures destroyed in each state by wildfire. Structures lost—rather than acres burned—provides a more complete measure of the broad impacts of wildfire.
Redefining the urban wildfire problem in the West
Leading wildfire experts make the case that creating wildfire-resistant communities must become a much higher priority.
The unequal impacts of wildfire
See where wildfire risk intersects social and economic factors that can make it difficult for people to prepare for, respond to, and recover from wildfire.