The State of California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) is now accepting applications for its Wildfire Resilience and Forestry Assistance Grant.
Donor Name: California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE)
State: California
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 02/26/2024
Size of the Grant: More than $1 million
Grant Duration: Grant Duration Not Mentioned
Details:
The purpose of the grant solicitation is to meet Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force Action Plan goals through allowing a prospective grantee the ability to provide a program of financial and technical forestry assistance to nonindustrial forest landowners, where the grantee, as the supervising entity, receives the grant from CAL FIRE and provides outreach and/or technical/financial assistance to landowners in order to conduct forest restoration or management activities on their property. The grantee will be responsible for payments of financial assistance to landowners.
Projects should seek to:
- Make funding available through agreements with landowners to pay for specific, noncommercial ecological forest improvement and wildfire resilience practices.
- Provide technical assistance to promote information sharing and education on the full range of effective forest management practices and opportunities as well as forest management education and management planning.
To that end the following goals as set out in the Action Plan are the focus of projects under this grant solicitation. The relationship between the Wildfire Resilience Block Grants and the Action Plan Goals are summarized below each Goal.
- 1.10 Maintain Forest Stewardship Education Program: CAL FIRE will maintain its Forest Stewardship Workshop program to help forest landowners develop management plans and implement stewardship projects. Workshop locations will be based on CAL FIRE’s fire-risk and priority landscape map and the 2019 Community Wildfire Prevention and Mitigation Report.
- 1.11 Increase Technical Assistance: The state, through contracts with cooperators, will assist landowners with Forest Management Plans, Burn Plans, archeological and biological surveys, project field design, and other support from forestry and other natural resource professionals.
- Successful applicants should describe the process for how Technical Assistance to landowners will be accomplished and describe metrics for landowner assistance success.
- 1.13 Support Forest Health and Maintenance Treatments: CAL FIRE will provide funding for initial fuels treatments and follow-up maintenance with landowners. CAL FIRE will prioritize funding of NIPF projects that are included within locally coordinated forest management and post-fire restoration projects that benefit wider landscapes across multiple ownership types.
- Non-industrial private forestland owners are the primary target of the Wildfire Resilience Block Grants. Applicants should describe their process for targeting NIPF’s while achieving the goals of “coordinated forest management”, or forest management that blocks smaller projects in a similar geographic location to achieve greater overall forest health goals.
- No landowner cost-share is required for application under this action item.
- Non-industrial private forestland owners are the primary target of the Wildfire Resilience Block Grants. Applicants should describe their process for targeting NIPF’s while achieving the goals of “coordinated forest management”, or forest management that blocks smaller projects in a similar geographic location to achieve greater overall forest health goals.
- 1.14 Establish Emergency Forest Restoration Teams: CAL FIRE and other state agencies will explore the potential for developing emergency forest restoration teams to assist small landowners impacted by wildfires with funding and expertise to restore their properties and help prevent further damage to life, property, and natural resources. This program can complement the NRCS Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and the Emergency Forest Restoration Program (EFRP).
- Applicants should focus their efforts on re-establishing burned forestlands through site assessment, planting, site preparation and vegetation treatment on fires that occurred within the last 3 years.
Funding Information
Up to $7 million may be awarded through this grant solicitation for projects addressing Action Items 1.11, 1.13 and 1.14. The minimum grant request should be no less than $1 million. The maximum allowable is $3 million.
Up to $1 million may be awarded through this grant solicitation for projects addressing Action Item. 1.10. The minimum grant request should be no less than $500,000.00 – five hundred thousand.
Eligible Organizations
Applicants submitting projects addressing action items 1.11, 1.13 and 1.14 are limited to Resource Conservation Districts (RCD’s) and special districts capable of acting as lead agency for CEQA projects. These applicants must demonstrate they have the capacity to deliver a forestry based technical and financial assistance program to non-industrial forest landowners. Applicants submitting projects addressing action items 1.10 are limited counties, resource conservation districts, special districts, and 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations.
For more information, visit CAL FIRE.
