On September 10, the California-Nevada Section of the American Water Works Association (AWWA), in partnership with the World Resources Institute (WRI), Blue Forest Conservation (BFC), and the Rural Communities Assistance Center (RCAC), hosted utilities operating in fire risk areas across northern California to learn more about how fire threatens their utility operations, gained insights into the Forest Resilience Bond (FRB) project in the Tahoe National Forest, and explored how to take advantage of innovative financing approaches and partnerships to protect their system.

Todd Gartner, Director of Cities4Forests at WRI, led the fire resilience workshop in our founding city Sacramento with the goal of identifying next steps to help utilities reduce their risk to wildfires through collaboration and proactive investment.

For more information on the Forest Resilience Bond, please see this recent blog written on this exciting initiative as well as this explanatory video.

If you would like to find out more and learn how to protect your system from the costly impacts of wildfire please contact Todd Gartner at TGartner@wri.org