There are two types of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grants available to local governments to address the costs of wildfire disasters: the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP), and the Fire Management Assistance Grant Program (FMAG).  The HMGP program provides grants to states and local governments immediately following major disaster declarations in order to institute long-term hazard mitigation programs and projects.  FEMA supports wildfire recovery efforts to local governments through the use of the HMGP funds.  The FMAG is available to states, local governments, and tribal governments and can be used for the mitigation, management, and control of active fires on publicly or privately owned forests or grasslands, which threaten sufficient destruction which may become a major disaster.  

The FMAG declaration process is initiated by a state when a "threat of major disaster" exists.  The entire process can be accomplished on an expedited basis and a FEMA decision is rendered in a matter of hours during the course of an ongoing fire disaster, unlike the HMGP program which takes place post-disaster.

FEMA has announced a pilot program to target those areas that have been declared eligible for FMAG assistance during a disaster for HMGP assistance post-disaster with the stated goal of increasing risk-reduction and recovery projects after FMAG declarations.  HMGP funding is now available for those fires for which an FMAG declaration was made between March 4, 2015 and September 30, 2015 for areas impacted by wildfire.  The goal of the pilot is to enable timely mitigation projects to take place on vulnerable burned areas at higher risk for hazards such as additional wildfire, flooding, and erosion issues such as landslides.  If the pilot shows success in mitigated further damage by allowing HMGP funds to be spent in FMAG declared areas the program could be maintained in future years.

California has 5 FMAGs in the eligible period.  There is $441,000 available under the pilot project to the California counties included in the FMAG.

  • “North Fire”    (San Bernardino)
  • “Wragg Fire”  (Napa, Solano, Yolo)
  • “Rocky Fire”  (Lake, Yolo, Colusa)
  • “Butte Fire”    (Calaveras & Amador)
  • “Valley Fire”  (Lake, Sonoma, Napa)

Last year, California had 16 declared FMAGs, so HMGP funding to each would be a considerable federal investment in the recovery in these areas.  RCRC supports the concept of HMGP funds being a permanent component of the FMAG program to assist communities’ recovery and for post-fire disaster mitigation of forests and watersheds.  The California Emergency Services Association (CESA) also supports this change and will be recommending FEMA make this change permanent following the pilot program.