Origins

The National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy (Cohesive Strategy) is a strategic framework, rooted in science, that guides stakeholders to work collaboratively to make meaningful reductions in risk and learn to live with wildland fire.  

The three overarching goals are:  1) Restore and Maintain Landscapes. Landscapes across all jurisdictions are resilient to fire-related disturbances in accordance with management directives.  2) Fire Adapted Communities. Human populations and infrastructure can withstand a wildfire without loss of life and property.  3) Wildfire Response. All jurisdictions participate in making and implementing safe, effective, and efficient risk-based wildfire management decisions.  

A fire adapted community is a human community consisting of informed and prepared citizens collaboratively planning and taking action to safely coexist with wildland fire.  More fully, fire adapted communities are knowledgeable, engaged communities where actions of residents and agencies in relation to infrastructure, buildings, landscaping and the surrounding ecosystem lessen the need for extensive protection actions and enable the communities to safely accept fire as part of the surrounding landscape.

The national Firewise USA® recognition program,  a component of Fire Adapted Communities®, provides a collaborative framework to help neighbors in a geographic area get organized, find direction, and take action to increase the ignition resistance of their homes and community and to reduce wildfire risks at the local level.  Any community that meets a set of voluntary criteria on an annual basis and retains an “In Good Standing Status” may identify itself as being a Firewise USA® site.