Rebuild NorthBay Foundation launches new initiative: “After the Fire: Recover. Rebuild. Reimagine.” targeting megafire recovery and resilience for communities across the Western United States

RNBF Executive Director Jennifer Gray Thompson will remain at the helm of ATF3R as the CEO. “When we first began on October 11, 2017, we did not know the future of megafires in the American West. It is now clear that our present and future 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. Collectively, our western communities are fighting megafires and mitigating the risk at the same time; it is complex, difficult, and important work. Since the beginning, we have coordinated, collaborated, and advocated for a better federal wildfire mitigation and recovery program.”

With the transition to a larger impact area, ATF3R is to expanding its leadership team. Joining Gray Thompson at the helm is 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, CA 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, innovative and transformative 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 stresses 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.”