California’s grim year of record-breaking wildfires continues this month. The Camp Fire in Northern California’s Butte County claimed 113,000 acres and 42 lives and counting as of Tuesday morning, while the Woolsey Fire in Southern California tore through 96,000 acres. Watching these fires race through the landscape can be scary, especially when it may feel like there’s nothing you can do.
Fortunately, a lot of people are working on the ground to fight these fires and support survivors as they return home — or find new housing, in the case of thousands who have lost their residences.
Whether you’re a local or live across the country, there are a number of ways to help.
Consider giving money, which allows community organizations to purchase what they need, when they need it, at a good price. One such organization is Mask Oakland, a collective that’s distributing respiratory protection to communities in need. Other options include the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation, California Community Foundation, United Way of Los Angeles and Ventura County, Direct Relief, California Fire Foundation’s SAVE program, Northern California United Way and North Valley Community Foundation.
Some organizations may need material donations. It’s a good idea to check their websites or social media accounts to learn more, as their needs can fluctuate — an animal shelter might be in desperate need of dry dog food one day, and overloaded the next. Many groups are maintaining Amazon wish lists to manage donations efficiently.
If you’re local to the fires, there are numerous volunteer opportunities, and you may also consider offering shelter to humans or animals who have been pushed out of their homes. Fostering or adopting pets can be especially important, freeing up space in shelters to accommodate evacuee animals who need temporary places to stay. Organizations like RedRover, Humane Society of Ventura County and North Valley Animal Disaster Groupare also responding to the fires with veterinary care and emergency sheltering.
But there’s another critical way you can support fire victims: Contact your federal legislators and talk to them about climate change.
While Donald Trump has blamed California’s water and timber management policies for these terrible fires, the truth is that climate change is the real problem. The state is being stricken with extremely dry, hot weather, which turns the landscape into a tinderbox and sends firestorms whirling through forests and homes alike when winds pick up. Climate change has exacerbated these conditions, and meaningful action on this issue will help not just California, but also states across the West.
The Trump administration’s official policy of denying climate change is harmful, making it difficult for administrative agencies to take action on climate resilience and mitigation efforts. Congress must act to explicitly state that climate change is real, and press for policy moves designed to minimize the effects of humans on the environment. As the severe hurricanes and wildfires of 2018 have shown, this is an issue that’s only growing worse — and future generations will pay a high price for our inaction.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy