The CalSAWS Project is holding a donation drive for those affected by the California Wildfires.  To date the current 2021 California wildfire season has burned through over 1,161,000 acres with over 6,540 fires and has impacted many families who may have lost their homes.

The Dixie Fire impacted communities, which had two towns in Plumas County, Canyon Dam and Greenville, completely destroyed by the fire. The multiple evacuations and loss of structures has created a chaotic situation and the community members are in great need of assistance. The goal is to raise as much in donations as possible to go toward gift cards to fuel stations, grocery, and stores to replace clothing and bare necessities until the survivors are rehomed. The challenge is that these areas are very rural, so they are spending their much needed funds on transportation costs get to other towns 30 minutes or up to two hours away to purchase gas or groceries. Many survivors are in their cars camping in parking lots scattered in mountain communities.

For an idea of scale, the Dixie Fire, is the single largest fire in all of California’s history, which has blackened over 600,000 acres, or more than 800 square miles, since sparking July 13 in Plumas County. Many key roads in and out of the area have been closed due to fire activity or to keep people away from dangerous spots or from impeding firefighter efforts. Due to those closures the survivors end up spending way more time driving to shelters and places to replenish supplies. The fire is now covering nearly as much land as Jacksonville, Florida, the largest city by area in the continental U.S. at about 875 square miles.

There are 6533 firefighters currently battling the blaze. 1220 structures were completely destroyed and almost 15,000 are at risk of being destroyed.

The fire is at 31% containment with no full containment date able to be given due to the extreme temperatures, challenging topography and ever-changing wind patterns.

Many of the individuals in these communities are extremely low income and many do not have the support networks that others do to help them get organized and rebuilding their lives. They need to get vital paperwork, file claims and more and don’t have access to the means to do all these things since they lost it all in the fire and for those evacuated who may still have homes, they have no idea when they can return as there is no full containment date. Having gift cards donated frees the survivors up to at least meet some basic needs and be able to focus on the hard work of filing claims and finding new child care locations, schools for their children, and jobs to support their families again. It is that dire and your help is greatly appreciated.

The CalSAWS California Wildfires fundraising team is a collection of individuals who work on the CalSAWS Project team who wanted to bring some relief to the impacted friends, neighbors, family, and residents who are impacted by the California wildfires, in particular the Dixie Fire. All fundraising proceeds will go towards the purchase of gift cards to fuel stations, grocery, and stores to replace clothing and bare necessities lost by impacted families. Lisa Salas, a CalSAWS team member, will be making the gift cards available to the CalSAWS California Wildfires fundraising team who will distribute these gift cards directly to impacted families.