Apply now for Wildfire Community Preparedness Day Project Funding Awards

February 10, 2015

Source: NFPA

Plan a wildfire awareness, risk reduction, or post-fire improvement project for the second annual national Wildfire Community Preparedness Day May 2, 2015, and your activity could receive one of 65 $500 project funding awards. Monetary support for the project awards and additional outreach efforts was generously provided by State Farm.

Applying for a project funding award is easy and only takes a few minutes to complete. To be eligible, applicants need to provide a short overview outlining the project’s details and describing the resulting benefits, along with a description of how, where, and who will be implementing the activity on May 2. Applications can be submitted through Thursday, March 5, at 11:59pm ET.

After submitting an application participants are encouraged to solicit support for their project from friends, family, and neighbors by asking them to vote for their favorite project idea using the “Vote Now” feature on WildfirePrepDay.org and the Firewise Facebook page. A National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) panel will review applications and select 65 project award recipients. A project’s total number of votes will be considered in NFPA’s final determination of the applications selected to receive a funding award. For official rules visit WildfirePrepDay.org. Recipients will be announced Monday, March 10, 2015.

The number of awards being distributed this year is a 325 percent increase over those provided in 2014, when 20 projects nationwide were recipients.

Wildfire Community Preparedness Day provides an opportunity for people of all ages to participate in a risk reduction or preparedness activity that makes their community a safer place to live. In 2014, individual projects completed on the day covered a wide-range of activities involving from a few people, to large groups and entire homeowner associations. The myriad of grassroots efforts last year included an array of actions that increased risk awareness levels and brought neighbors and stakeholders together to improve an area's preparedness and resiliency, while also making it safer for firefighters to defend homes in a future wildfire.

Visit WildfirePrepDay.org and check out the promotional templates and materials that can be used to promote activities. There’s even an extensive list of potential project ideas to help get you started, or browse through the 2014 project photo album and get motivated by seeing last year's accomplishments. Click here to find additional ideas for participating in Wildfire Community Preparedness Day from the National Volunteer Fire Council.

Start coordinating a Wildfire Community Preparedness Day project/event today!