By order of Sheriff Darren Weekly, Stage 1 Fire Restrictions are in place for unincorporated areas of Douglas County. Ordinance No. O-012-004 restricts open fires, open burning, and the use of fireworks in the unincorporated areas of Douglas County. Additional information on fire restrictions stages can be located at the Douglas County Emergency Management website.
In 2026, Douglas County is updating its hazard mitigation plan. The plan will address the risks posed to the County by hazards like wildfires, flood and drought, and identify specific strategies to help reduce or eliminate risks. To inform the plan, we need input from residents, stakeholders, and neighboring communities to identify safety issues and hazard areas in the county.
Hazard mitigation is an action to help reduce long-term risks caused by hazards or disasters, such as flooding, severe weather or wildfires. The purpose of hazard mitigation is to protect people and structures and minimize the costs of disaster response and recovery. Hazard mitigation can take many forms: capital projects, policies, education and environmental protection.
Proactive mitigation leads to more cost-effective projects. By contrast, reactive mitigation tends to lead to severe damage and often more costly fixes; it simply costs too much to address the effects of disasters only after they happen. A surprising amount of damage can be prevented if we can anticipate where and how disasters occur and take steps to prevent those damages.
Hazard Mitigation Plans (HMP) are prepared and adopted by counties and municipalities with the primary purpose of identifying, assessing and reducing the long-term risk to life and property from hazard events. HMPs are most effective when they are based on a comprehensive, long-term plan developed before a disaster occurs.
This plan is an opportunity to detail a variety of potential hazards that could affect Douglas County residents and will also allow the county and participating municipalities to be eligible for future mitigation funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The primary hazards of concern in the county include dam failure, drought, earthquake, flood, geologic hazards, hazardous materials, pandemic, severe weather, severe winter weather and wildfire.
The study will focus on existing buildings and potential future development, infrastructure and lifelines that might be impacted.
What’s the Process?
There are seven phases in our process to develop a new Hazard Mitigation Plan before implementation:
In order to create an HMP that is effective, we need to hear from the people who know the county and its hazards the best. Please take the surveys that make sense for you below:
Watch the May 22, 2025, meeting for an overview of the planning process, learn about the identified hazards of concern and learn how to remain involved throughout the plan update. Upcoming public meetings will be posted to this page.
Any sustained action taken to reduce or eliminate long-term risk to life and property from a hazard event. For example, in areas of the nation prone to floods, structures are elevated to reduce the risk of damage during high water level events.
Identify mitigation actions, projects, activities or processes:
FEMA Hazard Mitigation Assistance grant funding is available with a FEMA-approved Hazard Mitigation Plan (annual and post-disaster opportunities).
Take one of the three surveys! This will help us obtain input and get a better understanding of public preparedness for hazard events.
Sections of the draft plan will be available in 2026 for download, review and comment on the Douglas County HMP Story Map (coming soon).
