Community Wildfire Defense Grant 2022 Southern | USDA FS 2022 CWDG SGSF

Opportunity Information: Apply for USDA FS 2022 CWDG SGSF

The Community Wildfire Defense Grant 2022 Southern (Funding Opportunity Number: USDA FS 2022 CWDG SGSF) is a discretionary grant program run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service (CFDA 10.720) designed to help local communities and Indian Tribes that face elevated wildfire risk. The central aim is to support practical, on-the-ground planning and mitigation work that reduces the danger wildfires pose to people, homes, infrastructure, and surrounding landscapes, especially in places where development meets or mixes with fire-prone vegetation, commonly known as the wildland-urban interface (WUI). The program was created under Public Law 117-58, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (often called the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law), which provided major federal investments for community resilience and hazard reduction, including wildfire preparedness.

A key feature of this opportunity is how it prioritizes which communities should benefit first. The program emphasizes funding for at-risk communities that fall into one or more high-need categories: communities located in areas identified as having high or very high wildfire hazard potential, communities that are low-income, and communities that have been impacted by a severe disaster. The Notices of Funding Opportunity (NOFOs) contain the detailed definitions, thresholds, and documentation expectations for those priorities, but the overall intent is clear: direct resources toward places where wildfire risk is most intense and where local capacity to plan and pay for mitigation is often limited.

The grant is also tied to national wildfire policy through the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy (the Cohesive Strategy). Funded projects are meant to move communities toward the Cohesive Strategy's three broad goals. First, Restore and Maintain Landscapes focuses on making forests, grasslands, and other fire-influenced ecosystems more resilient to fire-related disturbances across ownership boundaries, consistent with local land management objectives. Second, Create Fire Adapted Communities focuses on reducing the vulnerability of communities so that people and built infrastructure can better withstand wildfire without catastrophic losses, which often includes work like defensible space planning, home and community risk reduction measures, and improving readiness. Third, Improve Wildfire Response emphasizes coordinated, risk-based decision-making and stronger cross-jurisdiction collaboration so that wildfire response is safer, more effective, and more efficient.

In practical terms, the Forest Service structured the funding around two main project types. The first is the development or revision of a Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP). CWPPs are locally driven plans that help a community assess wildfire hazards, identify and prioritize mitigation actions, and coordinate among partners such as local governments, fire departments, state forestry agencies, federal land managers, and community stakeholders. The second project type is implementation funding for projects that are already described in a CWPP, as long as that CWPP is less than ten years old. This design encourages communities not only to create plans, but to actually carry out the highest-priority actions identified through the CWPP process, helping ensure the plans translate into measurable risk reduction on the ground.

Eligible applicants are broad and include many of the entities typically responsible for community planning and public safety. Applicants may include state governments, county governments, city or township governments, special district governments, public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, federally recognized Native American tribal governments, Native American tribal organizations (including those other than federally recognized tribal governments), and nonprofit organizations both with and without 501(c)(3) status (excluding higher education institutions in those nonprofit categories). This mix allows applications from local and regional government bodies, tribal entities, and nonprofit partners that often lead community hazard mitigation work, public education, and project implementation.

From a funding and scale perspective, the opportunity listed an award ceiling of up to $10,000,000 and anticipated approximately 200 awards, indicating that projects could range from smaller planning efforts to larger, multi-faceted implementation initiatives depending on community need and project scope. The opportunity was posted on July 27, 2022, with an original application closing date of October 7, 2022, placing it within the early wave of Bipartisan Infrastructure Law wildfire resilience investments. Overall, this grant opportunity is best understood as a pathway for high-risk, high-need communities to move from wildfire risk awareness to concrete planning and mitigation actions, using CWPPs as the organizing framework and aligning local work with national wildfire resilience goals.

• The Department of Agriculture, Forest Service in the disaster prevention and relief, natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Community Wildfire Defense Grant 2022 Southern" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 10.720.
• This funding opportunity was created on Jul 27, 2022.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Oct 07, 2022. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $10,000,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 200 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education.

Apply for USDA FS 2022 CWDG SGSF

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