Supporting Wildfire Relief and Response

Wildfires are once again wreaking havoc on Northern California, displacing thousands of residents and causing untold damage to homes, communities and businesses. These devastating fires, combined with the awful human and economic toll from the COVID-19 pandemic, are stretching the already-thin resources and capacity of our heroic firefighting and disaster relief organizations.

With restrictions from the COVID-19 pandemic putting limits on direct volunteer, equipment and material donations, financial contributions are more important than ever to help the many organizations working to assist in the response and recovery. The Bay Area Council has assembled a list of some of the incredible organizations working on these efforts and we urge you to make a contribution of financial support. We will also be updating this list on our website at Wildfire Response and Relief.

While immediate relief is needed, we also need to focus on reducing California’s long term wildfire risk. The Bay Area Council Economic Institute is beginning work on examining the economic impacts of severe wildfire events on the Bay Area economy. The Institute envisions the report as key in understanding the impacts of such events, informing key stakeholders and policymakers in developing appropriate and effective policy responses to future wildfires. If your organization is interested in supporting this work, please contact Research Director Patrick Kallerman.

The Bay Area Council has also launched the California Resilience Challenge: an unprecedented statewide effort that recently awarded its first round of grants totaling $2.2 million to boost California’s resilience to wildfire, drought, floods, and heatwaves. The Resilience Challenge is currently seeking financial support for the 2021 grant program. To learn more and to make a contribution, please contact Vice President Adrian Covert.

Finally, we know that many of your organizations are already working to help and we want to recognize your efforts. Please share with us the work you are doing to respond to these horrible fires by emailing Justin Seiter at jseiter@bayareacouncil.org and we’ll include it on our website.