I see complaints about this with every major disaster, but the Red Cross rates very well in terms of overhead expenses for a large organization:
That being said, send your money elsewhere to a place you might prefer. World Central Kitchen has a lower expense ratio and is on the ground there now. There are many others to pick from.
Direct Relief is another good one. Based here in Santa Barbara, and that site gives them a 100% rating.
I’ve never donated to the Red Cross myself, but think the hate is mostly unfounded. There have been a few bungled things, but mostly they do a lot of good. I do donate blood through them all the time.
I do donate to World Central Kitchen.
I was more thinking Florida when I said that. It’s not too frequent for a beachfront house to be destroyed by a hurricane.
But yeah, wildfire might be possible.
I think the odds of repeat wildfires in the same specific area are likely as remote as hurricanes making landfall in the same spot. Would be interested to see the data though. Certainly risks have increased due to global warming and so much more housing being built in the forests.
Well with wildfires, afterwards the brush has cleared out and there’s probably virtually no chance in year 1 of a repeat wildfire. Then I assume both the frequency and severity gradually increase until at some point they are essentially equal probability of having another wildfire as before the first fire.
Whereas with a hurricane there’s no particular reason another hurricane couldn’t hit right away.
I am not an expert on either, but I think that’s approximately correct.
Red Cross has a terrible reputation in Australia when it comes to fire
Let the post-disaster price gouging begin…
Do private fire fighters have a demand based price too?
During Trump’s interview with Joe Rogan he talked about the fish that’s protected by limiting water flowing from Canada to Califonia. At the time the point was so jumbled. I have only now understood what his point was. He kept saying Newsom didn’t want to sign but it wasn’t clear what was being refused.
They manage to do it elsewhere. People who’ve received evacuation orders a few times and had friends and neighbors lose houses to wildfire are much more willing to have controlled burns nearby.
I’m pretty sure he’s talking about the delta smelt in San Francisco Bay. Its not the issue in Canada-US water flow. He may be conflating that with the Columbia River Treaty that’s in the process of being renewed. There’s also issues around the survival of Pacific salmon along the Pacific coast of the continental US
This assumes natural causes . . . many wildfires have a human origin.
Ones I’m aware of are services bought in advance. So it’s not like an auto garage where you ask for their services when you realize you need it.
With that said, I don’t doubt that if a wildfire is imminent, private fire fighter services are either not available or have rates much higher than other times.
One news article I was reading was talking about posts on X of people looking for private fire fighters and willing to pay anything. One ceo of a private fire fighter was quoted in the article saying that their phone has been ringing non stop since the blaze started. It got me wondering if they will walk out of this a very rich person.
I don’t know . . . if you only have so much man-power, you can’t take on everything coming your way.
You’ll have an obligation to those customers for whom you’ve already committed to else face a breach of contract law suit (which isn’t going to in the company’s favor given CA political/legal climate).
So you might make a sizeable profit with your excess capacity (if you have any).
some other nonsense he pulled out his ass bc he heard “a lot of people are saying” it?
He was pissed because when the GOP said the Democrats were playing politics with disaster relief after the hurricanes last year Newsom brought out a letter exchange between Trump and Newsom during Trump’s first term in which Trump threatened to not provide disaster relief for wild fires in Califonia if the protection for the fish wasn’t removed. It was preventing some business that Trump was associated with from doing something. So Trump was telling his side in a confusing manner.
Important to clarify that this isn’t necessarily arson. In California, sparking from powerlines is a frequent issue.
In Canada, they’ll often close hiking and riding trails as during extreme fire danger periods, hikers dislodging rocks could cause falling rocks to spark, horseshoes hitting a rock can create a spark, and engine exhausts can cause fires.
Campgrounds and unteneded fires are often issues. Smokers letting their ashes out while driving or tossing their cigarettes are a problem.
In person, I saw people being idiots cause a small grass fire when they were shooting off fireworks over a dry grassy area.
Agree with your statement; and this quoted part is a major contributor that I had in mind by “human source” . . . especially many who erroneously think that “no flames == no fire danger”.
The final check that you have your fire “completely put out” is to touch the ashes and see that they are cold . . . and that is after churning the pit to pull up the deeper ashes.
House down the street from me had a bunch of burnt items on the driveway. I heard later that someone had put ashes into the trash bin.