programs and impact
FAC Net provides training, resources, funding, and peer mentorship on topics across the fire adapted communities framework. This page highlights just a few of our embedded and network-adjacent projects and programs. Our projects are amplified and enhanced by the participation of our practitioner network and experienced staff.
Community Navigators
FAC Net’s backbone organization, The Watershed Research and Training Center, is one of several non profit organizations that are partnering with the U.S. Forest Service on a new “Community Navigator initiative” to better connect communities with federal funding and partnerships for wildfire and climate resilience. This initiative hopes to strengthen capacity within local-level partners to access resources and relationships to help further their goals, with a focus on communities that have limited experience engaging with federal programs, or have faced barriers in doing so. The initiative especially emphasizes the funding opportunities offered through the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (also referred to as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law) and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
Clean Air Program Projects
Credit: COPE Northern Sonoma County
Thanks to generous private funding and our long-established partnership with the US Forest Service, we have been able to host two rounds of a “community clean air pilot” cohort. The 2024 Community Clean Air Cohort included several communities who launched their first clean air initiatives.
Their projects varied and included: providing air filters for clean air centers during wildfire smoke events, air filter programs to address prescribed fire smoke, and providing filters for home-based use to vulnerable and disadvantaged members of the participating communities. Additionally, many programs are expanding smoke education efforts and ramping up staff capacity to help their communities be better informed about smoke impacts and preparedness.
Post-Fire Community of Practice
Communities of practice (CoP) and peer assists are a critical way that FAC Net supports fire adaptation leaders with discussion space, relationship building, and shared resources and learning. The post-fire CoP grew out of a workshop held by the Fire Networks in New Mexico in January of 2023, and builds on the previous work done by the Fire Learning Network’s Burned Area Learning Network.
Recognizing that post-fire is a deeply cross-cutting topic with a need for continued collaboration and learning, the group meets quarterly to discuss updates and news, hear from researchers, share funding announcements and more. Together and individually, our post-fire recovery group works to get to the heart of relationships to landscape, to each other, to the actions of the past and hopes for shared futures. We welcome all with an interest in and work in post-fire to join our meetings!
