Growing and widespread concern regarding the social and ecological impacts of wildfire has sparked multiple innovations in planning, preparation, and management. Among these innovations are new models of coproduction in which government fire managers collaborate with non-governmental entities on wildfire response. The most prominent of these innovations in rangeland landscapes is the Rangeland Fire Protection Association model, currently authorized in the states of Idaho, Nevada, and Oregon. Under each respective state’s Rangeland Fire Protection Association model, associations composed of volunteer wildland firefighters (primarily ranchers or those from ranching families) in remote rangeland landscapes are provided with the resources, training, and authority to respond to wildfires on private and state lands within their jurisdictions. Through cooperative agreements, these associations can also receive authorization to respond on the abundant federal (largely Bureau of Land Management) lands within their jurisdictions. Although Rangeland Fire Protection Association programs have been in place in Oregon since the 1960s, in Idaho since 2013, and in Nevada since 2015, there has been very little research on how they interact with state and federal partners, how state program design can affect outcomes, or on the opportunities and challenges created by this model. Given the extensive literature on institutional design for sustainable resource management, the study of Rangeland Fire Protection Associations provided an opportunity to understand how institutional design within a multilevel governance structure influences fire management outcomes. Our research project set out to develop some of the first research findings of any kind on Rangeland Fire Protection Associations. We did so through a comparative case study research design, including two associations in Oregon and two in Idaho. Included in these case studies were participatory mapping exercises, in which we asked both volunteer association members and Bureau of Land Management fire managers to designate values and risks on the landscape through the use of points and lines on paper maps.