LONG PINE, Neb. — Brown and Rock counties in north-central Nebraska will receive nearly $25 million in federal grants aimed at preventing wildfires.

The funding, announced this month, is part of the Community Wildfire Defense Grant program through the U.S. Forest Service. Local officials say it will have a lasting impact.

“This to us is a generational game-changer,” Brown and Rock County Emergency Management Director Traci Booth said.

“We’re going to be able to make a lot of fire breaks, get rid of a lot of the underbrush and some of the cedar trees in those areas,” Deputy Emergency Management Director Jessica Pozehl said. “We’ll have access to those areas in a quicker fashion should we have a wildfire.”

In addition to improving fire prevention, Booth said the grants will also boost the local economy.

“It will stimulate the economy with some of the contractors who are hired and the jobs it will provide,” Booth said. “This is a ten-year contract, so it’s a long-running contract.”

Securing the grants wasn’t easy. Emergency management and several partners, including the Niobrara National Scenic River, the Nebraska Forest Service, and the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, have been working toward them since 2023. The counties weren’t awarded funding last year, but this time the effort paid off.

“It took all of us coming together to be able to accomplish something this monumental,” Booth said.

The funding will be divided as follows:

  • $9.8 million will establish strategic fuel breaks and firebreaks in Rock County’s steep, remote terrain to better protect homes and ranchland.
  • $9.8 million will create at least 2,500 acres of additional fuel breaks in Brown County, with a new forester hired to oversee projects, collaborate with private landowners and organizations, and maintain the work over the next decade.
  •  $5.1 million will bring the Nebraska Forest Service together with private landowners to create fuel breaks near homes and along key terrain features, covering 150 high-priority acres. Because a shortage of contractors has left a backlog of unfinished wildfire prevention work, the plan includes hiring 10 additional foresters and providing needed equipment.

Once complete, the fuel breaks will help protect the Hidden Paradise community and the Long Pine Recreation Area, which bring tourists to the area.

“We always say it’s our favorite place,” Jenna Ohl from Omaha said.

“It’s peaceful. It doesn’t feel like Nebraska,” Jenna's husband, Jared, added.

Booth said the project will not only make the region safer but also more beautiful for both residents and visitors.