USFA Explores Post-Wildfire Recovery

Helping people recover

Recovering communities need resources to help them rebuild financially and emotionally. Consider the following steps:

• Identify people who may need additional assistance: Ensure there are adequate housing options. Some residents may have medical needs, pets, and livestock, or English may not be their first language. They may also need financial assistance or social services.
• Clean up burned properties: Debris may contain hazardous materials such as asbestos or lead in the ash and remains of burned structures. Local health departments can be key partners.
• Develop a recovery plan for post-fire flooding concerns: It should identify risks and prioritize mitigation projects to reduce life-safety threats and further damage. Remember to establish rain thresholds for road closures and evacuations. The National Weather Service may be able to assist users.
• Address landscape restoration needs to prevent further harm to the watershed: These projects can reduce flooding as well as help to protect water quality.
• Repair and maintain infrastructure: The more quickly damaged infrastructure is repaired, the more quickly life can get back to normal for community members. Remember to inspect other infrastructure that may be subject to flooding like culverts, dams, and ponds. They may need to be repaired to reduce the likelihood that they will fail in a flash flood.

Resources to help with the community rebuilding process

• The U.S. Fire Administration's Reimbursement for Firefighting on Federal Property can provide reimbursements for costs if users responded to a fire on federal property.
• The Action, Implementation, and Mitigation program can provide technical assistance, mentoring and some funding opportunities for mitigation efforts to be implemented post-fire or as the community is rebuilding for the future.
• After the Flames provides resource information on post-fire recovery and provides informational webinars and conferences.
• The Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA's) Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMPG) Post Fire provides funding to implement hazard mitigation measures after major wildfire events following a Fire Management Assistance Grant (FMAG) declaration. FEMA’s HMGP Post Fire assists with long-term hazard mitigation planning and projects following an FMAG or presidential major disaster declaration.
• FEMA's Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program provides annual support for states, local communities, tribes, and territories as they undertake hazard mitigation projects to reduce their risks to natural hazards.
• The Natural Resource Conservation Service assists with site-specific post-fire efforts through its Emergency Watershed Protection program. The program includes technical and financial support to local governments to implement projects.
• The U.S. Army Corps Of Engineers (USACE) provides a wide range of technical assistance to communities, including modeling and forecasting. Through Silver Jackets, USACE helps communities explore the availability of mitigation grants and determine ways to use them creatively.

Prepare for individual recovery

Individual recovery is easier if community residents prepare. Encourage them to think about the following:

• Work with the insurance company to ensure users have an accurate inventory of the home. Consider taking pictures of the home and its contents. Save this information in a safe place. Make sure users have enough insurance to help rebuild.
• Develop a personal support network. Identify relatives or friends out of the area who users can stay with temporarily.
• Get involved with local recovery efforts and resources.