FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Woodside Fire Protection District, including the Town of Portola Valley, the Town of Woodside, and Parts of Unincorporated San Mateo County, California Selected for National Community Wildfire Planning Assistance Program

The Woodside Fire Protection District, including the Town of Portola Valley, the Town of Woodside, and parts of unincorporated San Mateo County have been selected to receive wildfire planning assistance in 2021 under the national Community Planning Assistance for Wildfire program (CPAW).

As wildfires increasingly impact communities across the country, CPAW provides communities with diverse services including land use planning recommendations, customized research, online tools, and other resources to integrate wildfire mitigation into the planning process. The goal of the CPAW program is to reduce wildfire threat to homes and businesses while increasing public safety and community welfare.

“As more and more structures are being built farther into the forest a fire resilient or fire adapted community has become an extremely challenging if not implausible task,” states Woodside Fire Protection District Fire Marshal Don Bullard. Portola Valley Town Manager Jeremy Dennis agrees, “The balance of building farther into the wildland urban interface and maintaining a fire resilient or fire adapted community has become more and more challenging”.

Participation in CPAW is voluntary and there is no cost to the community. This innovative program was founded in 2015 and is a program of the nonprofit Headwaters Economics. CPAW is funded through grants with the U.S. Forest Service and private foundations. To date, CPAW has worked with 75 communities across the country.

“Communities are increasingly taking action at the local level to address the complex challenges of wildfire. By proactively planning our homes and neighborhoods with wildfire in mind, we can reduce community risks and adapt to living with wildfire,” said Doug Green, CPAW Program Manager.

More information about CPAW is available at: planningforwildfire.org.

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