Wildfire Planning Guide for Idaho Communities: Final Draft

This guide provides practical advice for those seeking to use land use planning and incentives to address wildfire in the wild-land-urban interface, especially in Idaho and the Western United States. The guide offers a conceptual framework that local communities — governmental and non-governmental — can use over time. The framework, which this guide calls the “WUI Wildfire Planning Process,” consists primarily of a four-step, cyclical planning process that revolves around the inter-governmental National Cohesive Strategy Vision and Goals for wildfire, and is supported at all times by education and outreach. Although little known outside of the fire community, the National Cohesive Strategy Goals are simple, but important, goals established through a five year planning process (2009 to 2014) in which federal agencies, state, tribal and local governments, as well as non-governmental partners, built a common vision of how the country could address wildfire. The three goals of the Cohesive Strategy are maintaining landscapes; developing fire-adapted communities; and developing a multi-jurisdictional wildfire response based upon risk-based decision-making. These Cohesive Strategy Goals are the core around which the WUI Wildfire Planning Process revolves. The four active steps of the WUI Wildfire Planning Process, which the guide discusses in great depth, are: draft and adopt a community wildfire protection plan (CWPP); regulate and incentivize the built environment at all scales; implement, maintain and enforce regulations and incentives; and respond to substantial changes such as wildfires or the passage of time. Numerous examples and best practices are provided for each of these steps throughout the guide. The guide’s discussion of wildfire law and policy is also enriched by the inclusion of a robust risk perception survey, which was conducted by surveying nearly 20,000 Idaho households in wildfire priority areas throughout the state in Fall, 2015 and Winter, 2016. The guide provides significant helpful data worthy of investigation. The guide is further supplemented by a robust appendix of over 30 wildfire code provisions from throughout Idaho and the West that provide a start for any local government seeking a resource of models from which to draft wildfire codes. While the guide is intended to further wildfire planning specifically in Idaho, many of the techniques discussed, including the WUI Wildfire Planning Process outlined by the guide, are potentially valuable references for local communities throughout the West. This final version of the guide updates a previous draft version and responds to comments by those participating in community meetings held throughout the State of Idaho in 2019.