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Sonoma-based foundation expands megafire recovery and resilience outreach to 11 Western states

The Sonoma-based Rebuild NorthBay Foundation was formed in the aftermath of the 2017 Tubbs Fire with a focus on regional wildfire recovery and resiliency. Now, building on four years of experience, the nonprofit is expanding its reach across the Western United States with its new initiative: After the Fire: Recover. Rebuild. Reimagine.  

The evolution of Rebuild NorthBay Foundation’s work in Northern California will bring together wildfire leaders in 11 states, said Jennifer Gray Thompson, while expanding access to wildfire resiliency and disaster recovery funds, tools, and systems.

“When we first began on October 11, 2017, we did not know the future of megafires in the American West,” said Gray Thompson, the founding CEO. “It is now clear that the reality is a systemic crisis where climate change is meeting decades of wildland mismanagement, resulting in massive wildfires with unprecedented impacts on our health, landscape, economy, and equity.

Northern California is just one region fighting megafires and mitigating the risk at the same time, Gray Thompson said. “It is complex, difficult, and important work.”

After the Fire, as it is now known, will continue, on a larger scale, “to coordinate, collaborate and advocate for a better federal wildfire mitigation and recovery program.”

The Board of Directors and leadership spent the past year studying the challenges of wildfire disaster recovery to prepare for this shift.  As the organization expands its reach, its work will focus on three program areas: wildland and home resiliency; applied technologies to aid in resilience and recovery; and help for wildfire affected communities navigating recovery.

 RNBF Board President Judy Coffey, who lost her home in the Tubbs Fire, will continue to serve in her capacity at the helm of ATF3R through 2021: “In 2017, RNBF was an innovation, a vision, and we have spent the past nearly four years challenging the traditional disaster nonprofit model in effective and transformative ways. It has not been an easy path, but we have made and continue to make a significant difference.”

Once rare, megafires are increasingly more common globally, especially in the American West. With high heat and profoundly dangerous drought conditions, 2021 is shaping up to be the worst wildfire season yet – right on the heels of the 2020’s record setting season which burned over 10 million acres and cost more than $16 billion dollars in damages and loss of life in America alone. 

The public sector has been overwhelmed by the massive need for assistance, Gray Thompson said and until recently philanthropy has not focused on wildfire disaster recovery. 

“ATF3R will facilitate strategic coordination (and) address the barriers that make risk mitigation and wildfire recovery out of reach for too many, especially in rural areas of the West,” she said. 

With the transition to a larger impact area, ATF3R is to expanding its leadership team to include Charles Brooks, founder and executive director of Rebuild Paradise Foundation (RPF). In June 2020, Brooks joined ATF3R as well as the Chief Operating Office and will transition over to ATF3R full-time by January 2022.

Brooks and Gray Thompson have worked closely since November of 2018 when she encouraged Brooks to establish RPF after the Camp Fire destroyed his home in the town of Paradise, along with 18,800 other structures in the most destructive wildfire in state history.  Over the past nearly three years, Brooks and Thompson have collaborated, advocated, and coordinated relief efforts not just for their local areas, but also for other fire affected communities. Along the way, they have established an effective, shared vision for improving the space of wildfire disaster locally, regionally, and nationally. 

Brooks stated, “Joining After the Fire is an incredible opportunity to work alongside a long-standing mentor, partner and fellow disaster innovator.  I look forward to the value that our combined experience will bring to the American West as we face unprecedented fire risk. Joining forces with ATF3R allows us to leverage and multiply the tools, technology, partnerships and regional knowledge we have gained on a national level.”

 Both Brooks and Gray Thompson understand how complex and difficult the recovery from megafire disasters for the community as a whole, and for individual families. Survivors often are so overwhelmed after their loss, that a thoughtful and experienced helping hand can provide exactly what is needed to start on a road to recovery. 

Gray Thompson stressed how the work puts humanity in the center by serving by listening first and asking, “What do you need, and how can we help? We listen. We learn. We provide adaptable systems, trusted resources, and most importantly hope for a better, safer, faster, greener recovery. We are not heroes. We are not saviors. We are the helpers who have lived through it and believe no community should have to reinvent recovery.”

Starting in July 2021, Rebuild NorthBay Foundation is doing business as (DBA) After the Fire: Recover. Rebuild. Reimagine.  www.afterthefireUSA.org

 

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