75 grants support local wildfire prevention, preparedness, and emergency response initiatives
SACRAMENTO, California — With wildfire season a year-round reality in California, sustained prevention and preparedness efforts remain essential for communities across the state. To strengthen these ongoing preparedness initiatives, the California Fire Foundation (CFF), with support from The PG&E Corporation Foundation (PG&E Foundation), has awarded $1 million in wildfire safety grants to 75 fire departments, fire service agencies, and local non-profit organizations in Northern and Central California.
This marks the ninth year that the CFF and the PG&E Foundation have collaborated to award grants helping communities bolster their disaster preparedness and response programs. This year, the PG&E Foundation committed an additional $50,000 to expand the grant program and provide more funding to communities.
The CFF reviewed more than 200 applications during a one-month application period and distributed the annual wildfire safety grants to agencies in high-fire-risk areas. The grants are awarded during National Preparedness Month, observed every September to raise awareness about disaster and emergency preparedness.
The grants will be used to purchase personal protective equipment and specialized gear for firefighters, carry out defensible space and vegetation management work, reduce fuel loads and hazards, and conduct public education and outreach activities regarding fire safety. View the list of grant recipients.
The PG&E Foundation and Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) are supporting the CFF’s broader Wildfire Safety and Preparedness Program (WSPP) through 2026 with $1.8 million in charitable contributions. Wildfire safety grants account for $1 million of the total charitable funding provided. The program aims to raise awareness about wildfire safety across California and bring resources to underserved communities in high-fire-risk areas. Grants to local organizations are a core component of the WSPP; the funding also supports the CFF’s multilingual public safety education and outreach multimedia campaign.
“California firefighters and local agencies work every day to protect lives, homes, and communities from a wildfire threat that no longer follows a traditional season,” said Darrell Roberts, President of the California Fire Foundation. “We commend these dedicated recipients for their ongoing preparedness and service, especially as warmer-than-normal conditions reinforce the need for statewide vigilance. For nearly a decade, our partnership with the PG&E Foundation has helped local agencies acquire essential equipment, reduce hazardous vegetation, strengthen public education, and better prepare the communities they serve.”
Since 2018, 505 recipients—including fire departments and fire service agencies across the state—have received $6.5 million in direct funding through the WSPP grant program, with the program receiving more applications each year than the last. Funding is directed toward specific communities identified by the California Public Utilities Commission as being at extreme or elevated fire risk on its High Fire-Threat District map. PG&E and the PG&E Foundation have contributed a total of $12.25 million to promote fire safety through the WSPP since the partnership began, with more than half of those funds supporting community grants. This charitable contribution is funded by shareholders, not by PG&E customers.
“Safety and our customers are at the heart of our partnership with the California Fire Foundation,” said Sumeet Singh, Executive Vice President of Operations and Chief Operating Officer at Pacific Gas and Electric Company. “Behind every grant lies the ability to better protect families, support firefighters, and strengthen preparedness and response when it matters most. Disasters do not stop at city or county lines, and neither does our shared commitment. Together, we are deepening local partnerships and building a stronger network dedicated to protecting the families, neighborhoods, and communities we have the privilege to serve.”
The WSPP focuses on two key areas to help keep communities safe:
- A wildfire safety campaign featuring fire safety education developed by the CFF—available in English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Hmong—to encourage early evacuation during fires. The WSPP has worked diligently to overcome language barriers by developing and distributing fire safety messages in multiple languages. The campaign includes advertising across radio, television, and digital media, as well as billboards in areas at high risk of fire.
- A grant program administered by the CFF through an application process. The CFF awards grants to fire departments, agencies, and community groups to support projects and programs focused on wildfire and disaster prevention and preparedness, as well as assistance with response, recovery, or both.
How WSPP helps communities
This year’s grant funding supports projects benefiting 4.2 million residents across 36 counties and includes:
- More than 2,000 units of personal protective equipment, such as helmets, boots, gloves, safety goggles, and fire shelters.
- More than 600 units of specialized equipment, including water storage tanks, portable radios, headlamps, hoses, clamps, nozzles, chainsaws, and gear packs
- Fuel reduction/vegetation management:
- Removal of hazardous trees and brush across several hectares, including over 80 acres of vegetation thinning
- Hundreds of thousands of pounds of tree limbs, branches, and other combustible materials chipped and removed
- Hundreds of prescribed burns or pile burns
- Multiple community safety projects supporting firebreaks or shaded fuel breaks, as well as ingress and egress routes
The CFF’s “Firefighters on Your Side” program, also supported by PG&E, provides multilingual and culturally relevant fire safety messaging—in both digital and print formats—to help the public stay safe.
About The PG&E Corporation Foundation
The PG&E Corporation Foundation is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, separate from PG&E and sponsored by PG&E Corporation.
About PG&E
Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation (NYSE: PCG), is a combined natural gas and electric utility serving more than 16 million people across 70,000 square miles of Northern and Central California. For more information, visit pge.com and pge.com/news.
