North Bay wildfire prevention efforts poised to benefit from federal infrastructure money

Bay Area elected officials gathered recently in Santa Rosa with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, firefighters and community members to announce billions of dollars of funding for wildfire prevention in the recently passed $1 trillion federal infrastructure funding package.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act invests $7.5 billion in wildfire mitigation and forest health and rehabilitation, and $3.4 billion is designated specifically for wildfires. The $3.4 billion will increase firefighter salaries and includes numerous prevention measures including hazardous fuel mitigation — measures that could help prevent the kind of devastating wildfires that ravaged the North Bay in recent years.