As wildfires continue to threaten communities across the US, we know how important it is to maintain a current, comprehensive Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP). A CWPP not only represents how a community plans to manage wildfire risk, but also helps unlock available funds for prevention efforts. However, building a CWPP can be challenging, requiring extensive coordination and analysis. Communities have relied on many solutions to assist with data gathering, risk modeling, and prioritization for developing a CWPP – from operating multiple technology solutions, to outsourcing the work to third-parties such as consultants. Fortunately, Vibrant Planet integrates oftentimes disparate solutions to analyze community risk and treatment opportunities, reducing the need for multiple softwares, or costly third parties.
Here’s how Vibrant Planet's decision support framework guides communities through each critical step of CWPP development:
Convene community partners
From land management agencies to community groups, Vibrant Planet helps communities follow a process that identifies and brings together relevant groups from the start. This collaborative approach ensures all perspectives are considered when defining landscape values and wildfire risk priorities.
For example, Placer County officials recently held several community workshops to understand what should be prioritized in their wildfire risk strategy. The platform allows users to rank how they’d like to prioritize eight different objectives, including safety, assets, biodiversity, water, and more. Placer County used Vibrant Planet to understand what objectives and values matter most in the community.
Establish a unified data foundation
The platform harmonizes publicly available data with communities' proprietary datasets like infrastructure locations and evacuation routes. This creates a comprehensive, current view of the landscape's vegetation, topography, and valued assets.
Model risk assessments
With industry-leading hazard modeling from Pyrologix, a Vibrant Planet company, partners can access maps highlighting areas with the highest wildfire risk within the community and/or wildland urban interface. This data-driven approach pinpoints the areas (fire pathways) of highest direct and indirect risk to the community.
Prioritize values and actions
Communities can overlay their defined values (e.g., structures, roads, utilities) onto the risk maps, allowing them to methodically prioritize assets for protection. The platform then generates an actionable plan detailing recommended projects, treatments, potential benefits, workforce needs, and more.
For example, the Truckee Fire Protection District recently found consensus across 10+ partners, assessed values-at-risk, and identified the highest impact areas to implement treatments in just nine weeks. This work resulted in an actionable, living CWPP and over 7K acres of prioritized fuel reduction work, sequenced and scaled down to the individual tree-level - ready for implementation.
Monitoring and adaptivity
With annual data updates, Vibrant Planet enables continuous monitoring of fuel conditions and incorporates impacts from planned (prescribed burns) or unplanned (wildfires) disturbances. This dynamic process ensures communities can proactively adapt their CWPPs as landscapes evolve.
How Vibrant Planet can help
By consolidating vast spatial datasets, advanced risk modeling capabilities, and a structured decision support system into one platform, Vibrant Planet empowers communities to develop comprehensive CWPPs. This streamlined approach eliminates the need to engage multiple consultants while fostering collaboration and ensuring prioritization aligns with the latest data and community needs.
We’ve already deployed across 35M acres in the US, and we see an opportunity for communities to leverage the data and analyses we now have readily available. That’s why we’re offering these communities access to our platform, so they can use the pre-developed analytics at no additional cost. For communities that are interested in using our platform where the area has not yet been analyzed, we’ll work to find a solution that delivers the data and insights they need to build actionable strategies.
As wildfire seasons intensify, maintaining a dynamic CWPP is crucial for protecting lives, property, and ecological values. With Vibrant Planet's cutting-edge technology, communities can navigate this complex process seamlessly, saving time and resources while developing a, data-driven, actionable plan for wildfire resilience.
Want to learn more about our community fire solutions, and start building your CWPP? Get in touch with our team.
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