Community Planning Assistance for Wildfire (CPAW)
In the Spring of 2024, the City of La Pine applied for and was selected to receive technical assistance through Headwaters Economics’ Community Planning Assistance for Wildfire (CPAW) program. Working with communities across the country, CPAW provides land use planning solutions, communications assistance, and customized research to better understand and manage wildfire-prone areas and reduce risks. Services and recommendations offered by CPAW’s interdisciplinary team are provided at no cost to the community.
CPAW envisions communities better adapted to living with the inevitability of wildfires by integrating wildfire risk-reduction measures into design and development to minimize costs, protect structures, and save lives. Incentives for development and design standards, building codes, subdivision regulations, strategic fuel breaks, and other planning tools are successfully applied. The goal is to reduce regulatory conflicts, address development, and ensure wildfire is considered alongside other community planning priorities and communities can thrive with wildfire on the landscape.
The CPAW process for the City of La Pine is divided into 4 Phases:
Scoping (started in May, 2024)
- We assess the needs, defining the goals and identifying stakeholders within the community. This includes meeting with City Council, Planning Department and the La Pine Rural Fire Protection District. Other stakeholder engagement will follow.
Assessment (started in June, 2024)
- Learn about the communities’ visions and goals and how success is defined in terms of wildfire resilience.
- Prepare a Community Wildfire Audit that will review the City’s current community plans and codes and how they each address wildfire.
Recommendations (Upcoming)
- Provide recommendations and support for strengthening wildfire risk-reduction standards in the City of La Pine Development Code and Comprehensive Plan update and the alignment of current and proposed land use codes and plans with existing City, County and State requirements, including Oregon SB 762
- Analyze flow paths in the development review process and make recommendations that support a more comprehensive risk reduction review.
- Provide resources such as model language, best practices, and examples from peer communities.
Actions
- Assist in the implementation of projects, adoption of regulations and outreach products.
We anticipate the first 3 phases of this process to be completed by the spring of 2025.
CPAW is a program of Headwaters Economics, an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization. Established in 2015, CPAW is funded by the U.S. Forest Service and private foundations. Read more about CPAW.
Click on the text below to view the two videos that Headwaters Economics produced about other communities we have worked with:
For more information view the attached files below on CPAW: