County accepts state grant and selects consultant to update community wildfire protection plan

Natrona County commissioners agreed on Aug. 5 to accept $125,000 in state grant funding and to proceed with selecting Y2 Consulting to update the county’s Community Wildfire Protection Plan and related mitigation work. The county manager for emergency management, Michael, asked the board to accept the Wyoming State Forestry Division’s award and to approve Y2 Consulting as the contractor; the county will be a subrecipient of the state grant and staff will negotiate a contract with the selected firm before final execution. Why it matters: an updated Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) is used to identify wildfire risk, prioritize mitigation projects, and provide the technical basis for grants and community outreach. County staff argued that improved GIS-based planning and modeling will enable better mitigation and inform residents and partners about high-risk areas. Contract scope and budget adjustments: staff said three firms submitted proposals and that Y2 Consulting was judged the best fit. Y2’s original proposal exceeded the $125,000 award by about $6,000 but the firm agreed to reduce some line items to bring the work within the grant limit without cutting core technical tasks. The largest reduction was contractor attendance at public meetings (reduced from four in‑person contractor-attended sessions to two); the vendor also reduced a small amount of hours in the community risk assessment (about $469) and trimmed some hours in public record database and report development. “We already have robust GIS infrastructure in Natrona County, and we can leverage some of that,” Michael said, arguing that fuels modeling and fire behavior analysis included in the proposal were retained and are central to the plan. Questions and concerns: commissioners raised concerns about how wildfire-mapping data might affect homeowners’ insurance rates. One commissioner said he had recently lost a homeowner policy and worried that certain data could be used by insurers to raise rates in parts of the county. Staff replied that mitigation work identified in the plan should, over time, reduce risk and be attractive to insurers, but could not predict insurance-company behavior. Public engagement: staff said the RFP required at least two public sessions and the selected consultant’s proposal included public engagement tasks; county staff and the consultant can add additional public outreach if the county chooses to host meetings without contractor attendance. Next steps and procurement: commissioners asked for the award to be accepted and for staff to negotiate a contract that will include required federal/ state grant clauses. The board agreed to proceed; staff will finalize contract language with Y2 Consulting and return a final contract or consent item as needed for signature and grant administration.