Community Rallies for Fire Relief and Recovery

My story of hopefulness is what I witnessed in response to fires that came through our communities and devastated our region, resulting in 3,000 people being displaced.

I put out a call on Facebook for people to join me in biking in water and supplies to the neighboring town where access was shut off for vehicles. In that town, disabled and elderly folk were stuck in homes without water, electricity, and even news. Some of them didn't have any mobile phone or access to information from the outside world.

Incredibly, in the wake of these fires, seven people joined me and we biked in water and supplies to this neighborhood where we found individuals who were in real need and hadn't seen anyone for a couple of days.

I put the call out for more people to join us the following day, and remarkably, over 100 people in my small town showed up with their bikes. We ended up going to 3,000 homes, and what was amazing was to see the way that people organized so organically, so willingly, and have continued to volunteer with this bike brigade and volunteering initiatives since.

After the fire, there was a commitment to build back better because the people who were most affected were largely Latino families on the I-5 corridor who were living in mobile home parks where the fire roared through. Many of these people couldn't get insurance because of US legislation around mobile home parks, which inspired a committed group of people to come together to ensure that the future of the town is filled with these people owning their homes.

Not only that, it was decided that the land be put into trust to stop the extractive behavior that was happening before. As a result of the fires, we actually emerged with a more equitable, just, and sustainable outcome.