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Biden-Era Wildfire Program Prioritized Underserved Rural Communities, Study Finds [1]
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Date: 2025-02-24
An analysis of the U.S. Forest Service’s Community Wildfire Defense Grant (CWDG) program found rural communities that have historically faced barriers to accessing federal grants got priority in funding in the program’s first two years of funding.
The wildfire defense program is now in limbo along with other USDA programs that have been frozen by the Trump administration. The USDA website says applications for round three of the grant program are due March 14.
Kelly Pohl, associate director of the nonprofit research group Headwaters Economics that authored the analysis, said the grant program’s impact on underserved rural areas resulted from efforts by the Forest Service and Congress to reduce the barriers to federal money.
“This program really stands out for successfully getting funding to communities that need the resources, and that [these communities] were really prioritized by Congress in the creation of this program,” Pohl said.
In its first two years, the CWDG program awarded a total of $420.5 million in grants for communities to prepare for and reduce wildfire risk. This includes projects like clearing vegetation around homes and neighborhoods, creating defensible space in communities, and providing cost-sharing resources for homeowners to implement their own wildfire defense projects. It can also go toward hiring wildfire resilience employees who can provide assessments for homeowners on how to mitigate their fire risk.
The Forest Service asked Headwaters Economics to conduct an independent analysis to ensure that the priorities of Congress regarding the CWDG program were being met. The group was given access to all the applications from the two rounds of funding and overlaid it with the communities’ wildfire risk and their capacity to compete for grants, using a mapping tool called the Rural Capacity Index.
Headwaters Economics found that 34% of the funds allocated since the program began went to “low-capacity” communities, which are communities that have limited resources to put toward creating competitive grant applications. These communities are often rural and have a harder time competing for federal grants than higher-capacity communities.
In comparison, over the four years the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities grant program has existed, it’s allocated just 4% of total funds to low-capacity communities, according to the analysis.
Pohl attributed the CWDG program’s success in getting funding to low-capacity communities to two tools the Forest Service has made available to grant applicants: an online data dashboard and the Biden-era Community Navigator program.
The dashboard compiles wildfire risk data on every county and tribal area in the country into an easy-to-use database where applicants can source information for their CWDG application, rather than rely on their own research.
The Community Navigator program was created by the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act and groups federal employees and nonprofit partner organizations together to work in communities to help them identify project ideas and develop competitive grant applications (as of February 17, 2025, the Community Navigator program’s website is down, so the future of the program is unclear).
Pohl said that the CWDG program allows flexibility in what types of projects are eligible for funding to allow local governments to identify what works best for their communities, unlike other grant programs with stricter guidelines. “[These tools] are really adding capacity and expertise for communities that might not have it,” she said.
The future of the CWDG program under the second Trump administration is yet to be determined. Just days after President Donald Trump took office, he initiated a number of federal funding freezes, some of which have been rescinded – like the short-lived Medicaid freeze – and others that are still in effect, like grant funding from the Department of Agriculture.
As of February 12, 2025, the Forest Service has not issued any guidance or changes regarding the program. In an email to the Daily Yonder, a Forest Service spokesperson said they are “working with leadership regarding compliance with issued Executive Orders and will provide guidance and communications about the CWDG program as soon as it is available.”
The program was authorized for five years of funding through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and will enter its third round of funding this year.
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[1] Url:
https://dailyyonder.com/independent-analysis-found-a-federal-grant-program-for-wildfire-resilience-prioritizing-rural-needs/2025/02/24/
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