2025 Forest Service Eastern Region Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy NOFO | USDA FS 2025 COHESIVE STRATEGY

Opportunity Information: Apply for USDA FS 2025 COHESIVE STRATEGY

The 2025 Forest Service Eastern Region Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) is a competitive grant program run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, focused on reducing wildfire risk and improving resilience across the Midwestern and Northeastern United States. The opportunity sits within the Forest Service approach to "shared stewardship," meaning it is meant to fund cross-boundary, multi-partner projects that manage wildfire risk at the landscape scale rather than in isolated, single-jurisdiction efforts. The overall intent is to make targeted investments that help communities, land managers, and partner agencies co-manage wildfire risk and produce measurable outcomes at the most appropriate geographic scale.

Program funding is designed to advance the first two goals of the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy (often referred to as the National Cohesive Strategy). The first goal, "Restore and Maintain Landscapes," emphasizes making landscapes more resilient to fire-related disturbances across all jurisdictions, consistent with local and regional management objectives. In practice, this typically points to work that improves forest and ecosystem conditions, reduces hazardous fuels, and supports long-term resilience so that when fire occurs it is less likely to be catastrophic and more likely to align with ecological and management goals. The second goal, "Create Fire Adapted Communities," centers on improving the ability of people, homes, and critical infrastructure to withstand wildfire without loss of life and property. This generally aligns with prevention and mitigation efforts such as community wildfire planning, risk reduction in the wildland-urban interface, outreach and education, and steps that increase preparedness and reduce structural vulnerability.

This is a discretionary grant opportunity (not a formula or entitlement program) and is classified under funding activity categories related to Disaster Prevention and Relief and Natural Resources. The CFDA/Assistance Listing number is 10.698. The funding instrument type is a grant, and the Forest Service is the administering agency.

Eligibility is broad and includes many types of governmental and community partners that would typically be involved in wildfire mitigation or landscape resilience work. Eligible applicants include state governments; county governments; city or township governments; special district governments; independent school districts; public and state-controlled institutions of higher education; federally recognized Native American tribal governments; nonprofit organizations with 501(c)(3) status; nonprofit organizations without 501(c)(3) status (as long as they are not institutions of higher education); and other eligible entities as allowed under the opportunity. This range of eligible applicants reflects the program's cross-jurisdictional emphasis and the expectation that strong applications will often involve partnerships among agencies, local governments, nonprofits, tribes, and other stakeholders.

Key funding parameters included in the notice indicate an award ceiling of $300,000 per award, with an estimated 25 awards expected. The opportunity was created on 2024-11-15, and the original application closing date is 2025-01-15. The funding opportunity number is USDA FS 2025 COHESIVE STRATEGY, and the official title is "2025 Forest Service Eastern Region Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy NOFO."

The description also references Forest Fire Compacts, which commonly refers to cooperative, multi-state or multi-jurisdictional frameworks that support coordinated wildfire management and mutual aid. While the notice summary does not spell out specific eligible project types, the emphasis on shared stewardship, cohesive strategy goals, and cross-boundary outcomes signals that competitive proposals will likely be expected to demonstrate clear risk-reduction benefits, alignment with cohesive strategy priorities, and practical coordination among relevant partners in the Eastern Region states.

• The Forest Service in the disaster prevention and relief, natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "2025 Forest Service Eastern Region Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy NOFO" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 10.698.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2024-11-15.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2025-01-15. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $300,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 25 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Others.

Apply for USDA FS 2025 COHESIVE STRATEGY

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