Community Wildfire Defense Grant 2024 (FY25) South | USDA FS 2024 CWDG SGSF

Opportunity Information: Apply for USDA FS 2024 CWDG SGSF

The Community Wildfire Defense Grant 2024 (FY25) South is a discretionary grant program run by the USDA Forest Service (CFDA 10.720) aimed at helping communities that face serious wildfire risk. The core idea is to fund practical planning and on-the-ground mitigation work that reduces wildfire threats to people, homes, infrastructure, and nearby landscapes, especially in the wildland-urban interface (WUI), where development and flammable vegetation meet. The program is designed to move communities from being reactive after a fire to being better prepared before the next one, with an emphasis on locally driven solutions that can be implemented across jurisdictional lines.

A major focus of this opportunity is assisting "at-risk" local communities and Indian Tribes. The authorizing law prioritizes projects that benefit communities meeting one or more of three key conditions: the community is located in an area identified as having high or very high wildfire hazard potential, the community is low-income, and/or the community has been impacted by a severe disaster. The NOFO explains how those priority factors are defined and documented, but the headline takeaway is that the funding is intended to reach places where wildfire danger and community vulnerability overlap, not just areas with general wildfire exposure.

Programmatically, the grant is tied to the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy and supports progress across its three goals. First, "Restore and Maintain Landscapes" supports actions that make landscapes more resilient to wildfire as well as related stressors like insects, disease, invasive species, and climate change impacts, while still aligning with local and regional management objectives. Second, "Create Fire Adapted Communities" emphasizes making residents and infrastructure as ready as possible to receive, respond to, and recover from wildland fire, which often includes reducing structural ignitability and improving community preparedness. Third, "Improve Wildfire Response" is about strengthening coordinated, risk-based decision-making across agencies and jurisdictions so wildfire management is safer, more effective, and more efficient.

The funding generally supports two main project types. One track funds the development or revision of Community Wildfire Protection Plans (CWPPs), which are widely used community-level plans that identify local wildfire hazards, prioritize areas for treatment, and outline actions to reduce risk. The second track funds implementation projects that are already described in an existing CWPP, as long as that CWPP is less than ten years old. In other words, applicants can seek support either to create/update the plan itself or to carry out priority mitigation activities that a recent plan already calls for.

Eligible applicants are broad and include state governments, county governments, city or township governments, special district governments, public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, federally recognized Tribal governments, Tribal organizations (including those other than federally recognized tribal governments), and nonprofits (both 501(c)(3) and non-501(c)(3), excluding higher education institutions in those nonprofit categories). This wide eligibility is intended to accommodate the range of entities that typically lead wildfire planning and mitigation, such as local governments, fire districts, Tribes, and community-based organizations working in partnership with residents and land managers.

From an administrative standpoint, the opportunity is offered as a grant with an award ceiling of up to $10,000,000, and the Forest Service anticipates making around 100 awards. The opportunity was created on November 21, 2024, and the application closing date listed is February 28, 2025. Applicants are directed to read the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for full instructions and then submit through the dedicated application portal at cwdg.forestrygrants.org, rather than a general-purpose grants submission site.

To help applicants through the process, the Forest Service scheduled Round 3 applicant webinars that cover how to apply, with the same core content offered across sessions regardless of region or applicant type. The webinar dates listed are Monday, December 2 (2:00 to 4:00 pm Eastern), Wednesday, December 4 (12:30 to 2:30 pm Eastern, with a stronger focus on Tribal applications and Tribal Q&A), and Friday, December 6 (2:00 to 4:00 pm Eastern). Recordings are expected to be posted after the live sessions on the Forest Service CWDG website for those who cannot attend. In addition, the agency plans to host periodic "office hours" during the application window, giving applicants another way to ask questions and resolve issues before submission, with dates and times posted on the CWDG program website.

• The Forest Service in the disaster prevention and relief, natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Community Wildfire Defense Grant 2024 (FY25) South" 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 2024-11-21.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2025-02-28. (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 100 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 2024 CWDG SGSF

[Watch] Creating a grant proposal using the step-by-step wizard inside the applicant portal: