Podcast: How the North Bay Forest Improvement Program Mitigates Wildfire Risks with Molly Curley O’Brien

Before Senior Community Resilience Planner, Molly Curley O’Brien, joined WRA last month, she appeared on the After the Fire USA (ATF) podcast, “How to Disaster”, with ATF CEO Jennifer Gray Thompson to talk about the importance of cost-incentive wildfire resilience programs. Molly discusses the details of the North Bay Forest Improvement Program (NBFIP), a  California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE)-funded program that Molly managed during her tenure at ATF. With regional collaboration and innovative program design baked in, NBFIP has created a model for what these cost-incentive programs can accomplish in wildfire-prone communities.

WRA is excited to help ATF share the success of this program and honored to have Molly as part of WRA’s growing Resiliency Team to enable us to provide more of these services to a wide scope of communities.

Listen to the podcast here!

More on this episode on the ATF website.

About the Speaker

Molly is an expert community collaborator and highly-skilled systems designer, having extensive work experience in policy, political engagement and government relations, and facilitation and outreach for local and state governments as well as non-profits. Molly’s professional experience is reinforced with graduate-level academic training with both an MBA and a Master’s degree in Public Policy. Prior to joining WRA, Molly was the Director of Grants and Government Programs at Rebuild North Bay Foundation (doing business as After the Fire, USA). There, she designed the organization’s policy platform wildfire resilience and recovery, while also organizing federal advocacy initiatives and government grant funding for wildfire resilience projects. 

Learn more about WRA’s Community Resilience capabilities and services on our website.