AINSWORTH, Neb. - Brown and Rock counties in Nebraska are set to receive a major boost in wildfire prevention efforts, with nearly $25 million in federal funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service.

The $24.8 million in Community Wildfire Defense grant funds will support three projects aimed at reducing fire risks and protecting communities, ranches, and recreation areas.

Brown-Rock Emergency Management (BREMA) Director Traci Booth said local leaders had been working toward this goal for years.

“We’ve seen the need for this grant since our agency started. We’ve been actively pursuing it for two years,” Booth said, noting that this was the counties’ second application after being turned down in 2024.

The funding comes just months after the Plum Creek Fire burned thousands of acres in the region this spring. Booth said the grants will allow the counties to shift from reacting to wildfires to preventing them.

“To be able to proactively fight fires, rather than reactively, is a beneficial generational impact on our area,” she 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.

“This is not something that one organization could have done by itself. We feel lucky to be a piece of it, and we’re all very invested,” Booth said.

The grant effort was a collaboration between BREMA, the Niobrara National Scenic River, the Nebraska Forest Service, and the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

Stay tuned to News Channel Nebraska for an upcoming video story on the grants.