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SOLUTION · WILDFIRE GOVERNANCE
Key information
| Title | Fire Protection Associations (FPAs) |
| Region and Country | Western Cape, South Africa |
| Hazard | Wildfire |
| Action Type | Governance Arrangement |
| Strategy or Guiding Policy | Western Cape Provincial Veld Fire Plan 2024–2025 |
| Key links | The Cape Peninsula Fire Protection Association The Greater Overberg Fire Protection Association |
Action Description
Fire Protection Associations (FPAs) are voluntary organisations formed by landowners in wildfire-risk areas to prevent, predict, manage, and assist with the extinguishing of wildfires under the National Veld and Forest Fire Act (Act 101 of 1998). FPAs are co-operative structures established between local authorities, the state, private landowners, and their lessees in areas of high wildfire risk. In areas where risk is high, landowners work together to prevent and manage fires: FPAs in collaboration with municipalities build and sustain relationships with landowners, organise groups into fire management units, develop fire management plans consistent with the provincial strategy, ensure implementation of those plans, and continuously monitor their effectiveness. FPAs are considered successful and cost-effective vehicles for integrated fire management.
A practical output of Fire Management Units is the production of site-specific Wildfire Pre-Attack Plans, developed collaboratively by the Western Cape Disaster Management Centre, FPAs, and landowners. These spatially detailed documents map water points, aerial resource locations, evacuation routes, structure triage zones, and landowner-held suppression resources across defined areas. In the Witzenberg Valley, the Fire Management Unit encompasses 18 farms contributing a combined 242 trained personnel, multiple skid units and water trailers, and a mobile incident command facility, demonstrating the scale of organised, deployable capacity that FPA structures can generate from voluntary landowner participation.
FPAs in the Western Cape are expanding their mandate beyond fire suppression. The Overberg FPA has become an active partner in efforts to integrate prescribed burning with invasive alien plant (IAP) management at landscape scale, a significant challenge in the fynbos biome where invasive species increase fuel loads and fire intensity. In 2025, the Cape Floristic Region Partnership established a dedicated Integrated Fire and IAP Working Group, with FPAs among its core participants. A spatial fire planning and biodiversity prioritisation tool is also in development for Mediterranean regions including the Western Cape, with direct relevance to MCAP members facing analogous fuel management challenges.
The FPA model is anchored in the Western Cape Provincial Veld Fire Plan 2024–2025, which provides the strategic framework within which individual FPAs and Fire Management Units operate.
Who in regional government delivers this
The Western Cape Disaster Management Centre develops Wildfire Pre-Attack Plans collaboratively with FPAs and landowners. FPAs work in collaboration with municipalities, within the strategic framework of the Western Cape Provincial Veld Fire Plan 2024–2025.
Best Practice Principles
Build on a statutory foundation. Establishing landowner fire associations under national legislation gives them a defined legal basis and clear responsibilities for preventing and managing wildfires.
Draw on voluntary landowner co-investment. Organising landowners into fire management units generates organised, deployable capacity from voluntary participation.
Nest planning from provincial strategy to unit-level plans. Linking the provincial veld fire plan to fire management plans and site-specific pre-attack plans creates accountability and operational readiness across scales.