PG&E awards grant to California Fire Foundation to boost wildfire preparedness
Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) is providing $1.4 million to the California Fire Foundation (CFF) to support the organization’s wildfire safety and preparedness efforts.
Specifically, PG&E and the PG&E Corporation Foundation are awarding the funding to CFF’s Wildfire Safety and Preparedness Program (WSPP) – a program established five years ago to raise public awareness about wildfire safety and deliver resources to underserved communities in high fire-risk areas.
The WSPP includes a grant program that awarded 54 local fire departments, fire agencies, and community groups $670,000 in funding last year. Starting May 18, fire departments and community-based organizations in California can submit applications for this year’s grants. Applications must be submitted by 11:45 p.m. on June 17 at the CFF website. Award recipients will be notified starting in mid-July.
The CFF, through the WSPP, has awarded 199 grants to fire departments and fire agencies statewide, focusing its efforts in Northern and Central California. It targets communities identified as having extreme or elevated fire risk.
“California’s drought, coupled with drier, hotter conditions, are putting communities at risk. The Wildfire Safety and Preparedness Program is a partnership with PG&E that was created to address the increasing wildfire risk,” Rick Martinez, executive director of CFF, said. “Our partnership over the last five years, in which California has seen an increase in fire activity, has played an important role in helping local communities become more fire-safe.”
Among the items that WSPP has funded in the past include specialized fire equipment and personal protective equipment; defensible space and vegetation management efforts; fuel/hazard reduction programs; fire prevention and emergency preparedness education; fire safety outreach campaigns, including 12,000 brochures targeting underserved communities in English, Spanish, Chinese, Hmong and Vietnamese; and partnerships with community groups in high fire-risk areas to distribute fire-safety information
“At PG&E, we’ve taken a stand that catastrophic wildfires shall stop. But we know we can’t do it alone. It will take all of us working together to mitigate the wildfire risk and help our hometowns be better prepared and be more resilient to this growing threat,” Sumeet Singh, PG&E Executive vice president, chief risk officer and interim chief safety officer, said.
The WSPP distributes fire-safety messaging targeting Spanish, Chinese, Hmong, and Vietnamese communities. These efforts include outdoor billboards, television, radio, and digital ads.
