The North Bay Forest Improvement Program is a regional financial and technical assistance program for non-industrial small-scale private landowners in Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino, and Lake Counties in Northern California. It provides planning expertise and funding to help landowners reduce wildfire risks on their forested properties through fuel management projects like vegetation thinning and prescribed burns. It was created after the 2017 wildfires as a collaborative effort between the Resource Conservation Districts in the four counties to address the specific needs of the region that weren't fully met by existing state and federal forest improvement programs.
Tune in as Dr. Lucas Patzek the Executive Director of Napa County Resource Conservation District and Molly Curley O’Brien, the Senior Community Resilience Planner Wetlands Research Associates (WRA) Inc. discuss the origins of the program, how the program provides financial and technical assistance to non-industrial private landowners, the challenges of implementing such a program at a regional level compared to existing state and federal programs, early impacts of the program, and the potential for the program model to be scaled to other regions affected by wildfires.
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