Part of being a recognized Firewise USA® site is reporting the ongoing work residents complete each year to reduce their wildfire risks, while addressing the areas and priorities identified in their community’s wildfire assessment.
Every November, participating sites must submit an annual application to maintain their “in good standing” status. Renew using the Firewise USA® portal.
Educational outreach: Host an outreach event and work with neighbors on addressing items in the action plan.
Risk reduction investment: Record your community’s efforts to reduce its wildfire risk in the calendar year. You can include any time invested and expenses your community may have had to reduce its wildfire risk.
At a minimum, each site is required to annually invest the equivalent of one volunteer hour per dwelling unit in wildfire risk reduction actions. If your site has identified 100 homes within its boundary, than 100 hours of work or the monetary equivalent. More information on the investment requirement can be found on your community dashboard in the Firewise portal.
Action plan: Review and update your action plan. Check your community dashboard in the Firewise portal to see when your next update is due.
California communities: please visit CAL FIRE’s website for more information and templates specific to California
Community risk assessment: Review and update your community risk assessment. Check your community dashboard in the Firewise portal to see when your next update is due.
Overview: Has your community grown or changed its boundary? If so, you’ll need to update the number of dwelling units and submit a new boundary map to firewise@nfpa.org.
Committee/Board: Add and change the board member contacts, or keep it the same.
Vegetation removal: If you had an event where your community removed vegetation, you can tell us how much was removed and share a short narrative describing the event.
Resident leader changes or log-in questions: The previous resident leader can go into the portal and add a new resident leader by clicking on "Manage Contacts" on the community dashboard. This will allow the new resident leader to create their own personal log-in. If you do not have the current log-in for your site or are having trouble with your log-in, contact the Firewise team.
Skipping around your renewal application: Use the drop down menu in the renewal application to navigate quickly to the section you want to use. Green check marks indicate the sections where the yearly requirements have been completed.
Saving throughout the year: You don’t have to wait to put in your activities. Access the portal throughout the year and enter your events or investments. Make sure to hit the green “save” button, this will log your record and reset the fields, allowing you to make additional entries. You can continue on to the next section or save and close your application.
