Support Wildfire Relief Efforts in Northern CA

Hello Friends,

I’m pleased to provide you with an update about the impact our volunteers and staff are making in Northern California. Since launching the recovery element of the California Wildfire Relief Program this summer, in partnership with Hope Crisis Response Network and Habitat for Humanity, we have been working towards our goal of completing nine home rebuilds in Paradise and nearby Magalia by the end of December. Our volunteers are hard at work installing siding, windows, flooring, doors, trim and cabinetry; painting and completing finish work to bring comfort and security back to those who lost their homes in the 2018 Camp Fire.

Wildfire season continues to pose risk through the dry autumn months. We are heartbroken by the immensely damaging 2021 wildfire season, and we are humbly reminded why ongoing mitigation efforts are so important. Our teams are preparing to resume their mitigation activities and sawyer training this coming December, when we can safely and responsibly operate chainsaws and other machinery to create fuel breaks and remove hazard trees for protection against future wildfires.

Our impact to date:
11 fuel break acres cleared
8,023 volunteer hours contributed
60 volunteers engaged
534 hazard trees felled

Thank you for following our progress!

Hi Friends!

It has officially been five months since we launched our wildfire relief program in Northern California, and we are pleased to share with you what our teams have accomplished so far. In line with our adapted COVID-19 volunteer model, we have been hosting groups of volunteers for eight weeks at a time during which they complete our sawyer training program. In tandem with their training, volunteers and staff have been working hard on our mitigation scopes of work meant to expand the fuel break around Paradise, and increase defensible space around homes. We welcomed a new group of volunteers late last month, bringing the number of volunteers trained through this program to 28! 

Impact so far:

• 9 acres of fuel break cleared
• 519 hazard trees felled
• 4,393 volunteer hours contributed

Thousands of acres of trees die after wildfires every year, and while our program aims to remove these hazardous, dead trees and push back against the ones right up on properties and town borders, we also want to promote regrowth in the areas impacted by wildfires. Trees provide shade, which keeps areas cooler and slows down the process of organic debris drying out (a key catalyst of wildfires). Trees also absorb carbon dioxide, provide oxygen for us to breathe, and are critical for erosion control after wildfires to stabilize the soil with their roots.

We're proud to work alongside STIHL in its effort to plant 2,021 trees to support the recovery of wildfire-damaged state parks in the Pacific Northwest. Earlier this month, our team planted 40 trees of various sizes at Collier Memorial State Park in Oregon and Lake Oroville State Recreation Area in California, and we look forward to continuing tree planting on a larger scale in the fall. Planting trees is an important first step to restoring and reopening these areas, and we're excited to be participating.

We’re also excited to announce that the recovery element of this program is now underway. In partnership with Hope Crisis Response Network, the team is working on its first home rebuild and is starting with trimming and painting this week, following the successful installation of drywall and texturing.

We are so happy to see the ways our team has been able to contribute meaningfully to recovery efforts in Paradise so far, and we look forward to updating you on their progress again soon!