Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Wildfire Mitigation Cwdg topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Wasco County authorizes application for Community Wildfire Defense Grant Round 3 to expand fuels work
Summary
The board authorized staff to apply for round 3 of the Community Wildfire Defense Grant. The proposed $2.7 million application would fund crews, cisterns and community education focused on Mosier and Chenoweth, with partners including Mosier Fire, Mid-Columbia Fire & Rescue and 6 Rivers/Wascow County Soil & Water Conservation District.
Wasco County commissioners voted unanimously to authorize county staff to submit an application for the U.S. Forest Service's Community Wildfire Defense Grant (CWDG) Round 3, seeking funding for fuels reduction work, water storage and public education across targeted wildland-urban interface areas.
Planning Director Daniel Doherty and wildfire coordinator Melissa Napoli told the board the county's draft application focuses on Mosier, Chenoweth and surrounding unincorporated communities. Napoli said the request now being finalized is approximately $2.7 million and would fund seasonal mitigation crews to perform homeowner defensible-space work, four above-ground 12,000-gallon water cisterns in Mosier to speed tender refills, community-education events and one additional year of funding for the county's wildfire coordinator position.
Napoli described the Mosier proposal as a direct-service effort for homeowners in the Mosier Fire District and said the cisterns address a single current water-resupply point that requires tenders to return to Mosier School to refill. In Chenoweth, she said Mid-Columbia Fire & Rescue would provide seasonal crews to do defensible-space work in focused populated pockets outside city limits. Mosier plans to contract with Wasco County Soil and Water Conservation District for administration support. Napoli said letters of support are in hand from Oregon State University, Mosier Fire, Oregon Department of Forestry, Wasco County Forest Collaborative and the Oregon State Fire Marshal's Office; Petersburg was listed as a possible partner pending a vote at its board meeting.
Commissioners asked about project boundaries, partner capacity and whether currently unserved areas might be added. Community-development director Kelly House and commissioners noted project footprints are shaped by a mix of population density, wildfire risk data and a CWDG criterion that allows low-income communities to request a cost-share waiver; Napoli said Wasco County meets the waiver criteria but the deadline for Round 3 applications was extended to March 15 to accommodate a recent Forest Service guidance change.
Board members also discussed that project boundaries do not yet include every unincorporated area with wildfire risk; staff said they had been prioritizing populated, higher-risk pockets and communities with qualifying income levels. Napoli said final budgets and partner scopes would be firmed up before any award acceptance and that awards (if made) would typically be announced in summer.
The board voted unanimously to authorize staff to submit the Round 3 application by the extended deadline.
The county will return to the board with a detailed budget and final partner agreements if the application is successful.
