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First Responders

Local fire departments and state and federal firefighters navigate the challenging and dangerous frontlines of wildfire suppression, and above all, are charged with public and personnel safety.

resources for you

If you are a seasoned wildfire professional, or new to community fire adaptation, here are a few resources to help build your skills and support your efforts to build community resilience.

INTRODUCTION TO FIRE ADAPTED COMMUNITIES

What are fire adapted communities?  What actions can fire districts and emergency responders take to help communities better live with wildfire?   

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Engage with your community before a wildfire to help encourage effective preparedness and evacuation. 

COMMUNICATIONS 

Effectively Using Social Media

Before, during, and after an emergency, residents look toward emergency responders to provide them with current and up-to-date information.  Clear, actionable communications are essential.  

Here is a three-part virtual workshop series on how to use social media to effectively connect with your audience and convince them to adopt a desired behavior to take action.

Communications After the Fire

Immediately after a fire, first responders continue to be a trusted source of information.  Yet, just because the fire is out, does not mean the risk subsides.  Post-fire flooding and debris flows are secondary disasters after a fire.  Emergency responders have the opportunity to help communities prepare for these post-fire risks.  The After the Fire Communications Toolkit inlcudes templates, messaging, and recommended mitigation actions to communicate with your community about post-fire risks. 

WILDFIRE MITIGATION

We rely a lot on landowners to remove and dispose of vegetation from around their homes, but what happens if we begin to build workforce capacity to not only mitigate wildfire, but to steward our lands so that we can all better live with fire?

PRESCRIBED BURN ASSOCIATIONS

Learn to burn together.  Prescribed burn associations (PBA’s) provide opportunities for a group of landowners, interested citizens, fire districts, and organizational partners to form a partnership to conduct prescribed burns. 

WAFAC members are leading efforts in Washington to build capacity through community-led burning programs, such as prescribed burn associations.  Check out their successes and lessons learned – and how you can get involved.

LEARN MORE

The national Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network has curated a database of resources to support emergency responders in their efforts to support community fire adaptation.  

FIRST RESPONDERS PLAY A KEY ROLE

IN COMMUNITY FIRE ADAPTATION

Because first responders typically experience a high level of community trust, they have a unique opportunity to support their community not only during the fire, but before and after, as well.  
 

FACILITATION AND TRAINING RESOURCES FOR YOUR COMMUNITY

The following training toolkits (English and Spanish) were created to help you, emergency responders, get a quick start in preparing your community for wildfire. You can use the toolkits as part of your outreach and education efforts, to work with communities to plan for wildfire, to share resources, or generate discussions around specific topics.  

Each toolkit contains a 3-part video series, presentation template with facilitator’s notes and talking points, and sample meeting/workshop agenda, including links to additional resources.  

Remember, there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to preparedness, response, and recovery – and so the toolkits do not include a comprehensive set of actions to prepare your community for wildfire but will help to start the community on your journey to better live with wildfire.

When utilizing these toolkits, we encourage you to collaborate with local partners to facilitate community conversations and adopt a set of actions unique to your community.

Please feel free to download, use, and adapt the resources to fit your needs.

Before the Fire

During the Fire

After the Fire

This After the Fire Resources Guide provides an overview of the After the Fire Resources and how they can be used as stand-alone resources or as teaching and planning tools.

This Resident Recovery Guide Template can be used to facilitate pre-planning for recovery workshops with residents.

from the field:

first responders