Trinity County's Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) one of the first completed in California, is about to undergo an extensive update with input from the public and emergency response agencies. Community Wildfire Protection Plans have proven to be one of the most successful tools for identifying and addressing wildfire risks. Maintaining an effective CWPP depends on widespread collaboration among landowners, emergency response managers, and federal, state and local officials.

Trinity County Fire Safe Council is organizing the effort to update the county's CWPP this year with funding from the Trinity County Board of Supervisors through the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act. The plan was initially created in 1999-2001 through a series of community meetings around the county, and received formal approval as the county's CWPP in 2005 by the Fire Safe Council, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, Trinity County Fire Chiefs' Association and the Board of Supervisors. Since then it has served as a model for counties and communities around the state.

The current CWPP has been an important guide in setting fuel reduction project implementation priorities for the federal land management agencies, like the US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management and for obtaining funding from the Trinity County Resource Advisory Committee and California Fire Safe Council. Key elements of the update will include continued work with the Volunteer Fire Services, federal and state fire managers, and the county’s at-risk communities.

The Resource Conservation District and Watershed Research and Training Center will lead the CWPP update, using community meetings and county-wide firewise activities in conjunction with volunteer fire departments to collect information on what work has been done since 1999 and what future projects are the new priorities. Planning will then turn to the Trinity County Fire Chiefs’ Association, forestry and fire management professionals to provide their expertise. Products will include an updated “living” CWPP database that includes; updated Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) boundaries, emergency ingress and egress routes for communities, tracking implementation of fuels reduction projects, landscape scale restoration and fuel management strategies, historical fire and fire suppression data, critical fire suppression response data (locations of home-sites, water sources, bridges, turnarounds, etc.), and updated values-at-risk. The database will be available via the Resource Conservation District’s website in data formats useful for all responsible agencies as well as the public. It will facilitate advanced pre-fire planning as well as improved fire suppression coordination and response in the future.

Please see: http://www.cafirealliance.org/cwpp/