Santa Clara County Community Wildfire Protection Plan

In 2015 SWCA developed a high-end CWPP for the entire area of Santa Clara County, better known as the Silicon Valley. This project had a large number of public and private stakeholders, including federal, state, and County partners and private citizens, and a very engaged public whom SWCA interacted with via multiple outreach approaches, including a custom-designed online survey portal, social media site, and a series of public meetings and workshops. SWCA prepared a comprehensive risk/hazard analysis to identify priority areas for wildfire mitigation and prevention and recommended mitigation actions that were focused on potential loss of community values at risk and critical infrastructure within the WUI. The analysis also considered the wildfire response capacity of local emergency services and included recommendations for increasing the capability of emergency responders.

In 2022 Santa Clara County Fire Safe Council retained SWCA to develop an update to the 2015 Plan. The updated CWPP utilized new fine-scale fuel mapping and risk assessment, increased community engagement to a broader range of stakeholders, and included a top-of-the-line CWPP story map and map interface to increase community engagement in the planning project and increase the implementation and tracking of needed wildfire mitigation activities.