Empowering your community after a wildfire is a crucial step in the recovery process. When community leaders unite all of the affected parties, large-scale damage prevention and or recovery is often expedited. The information below is designed to help local governments and community leaders to start the recovery coordination process.
How to Mobilize Post‐Wildfire
- Establish a Post‐Fire Coordinator
- Clearly identify community response roles
- Assess your community’s needs
- Create clear lines of communication
- Reach out for immediate resources
- Shelter displaced people and pets
- Work with volunteers
- Planning tools
- Community Leaders Guide to Disaster Operations
- Post‐Wildfire Guide
- Wildfire Safety Guide
Working With Volunteers
Volunteers can help your community recover from wildfire. Here are some tips to aid you in successfully utilizing volunteer assistance:
- Identify a Volunteer Coordinator who is personable, organized, and preferably has prior management experience to:
- Handle volunteer requests including screening
- Create and maintain a volunteer database including:
- First and last name
- Address, city, county, state, zip code
- Work phone and extension, home phone, mobile phone
- Email address
- Date of birth (adult or minor)
- Skills or type of work volunteer is willing to perform and any relevant experience or expertise
- Availability
- Volunteer organization affiliation, if any
- Track volunteers, services, and donations
- Match the right volunteer with the right project
- Review project proposals
- Research and obtain funding and resources for approved projects
- Recruit volunteers through social media, press releases, and outreach opportunities
- Assess Resources
- What jobs need to be done that we do not have the resources for
- What tasks can be done by volunteers and which should be done by experts
- Recruit the following volunteers:
- Patient, kind, knowledgeable people to answer telephones
- Detail‐oriented people who can enter information in computer databases and make follow‐up calls
- People with professional skills like grant writing, accounting, legal skills, media and outreach
- Outdoor types willing to get dirty doing cleanup, filling sandbags, raking, seeding and related activities
- Find the right person for the right job, try to utilize everyone to promote community cohesion and healing post‐disaster
- Consider safety paramount when working with volunteers performing physical jobs
- Ensure proper training, keep instructions simple
- Keep groups small, 7 people to each volunteer coordinator
- Confirm volunteers are wearing the proper PPE
- Volunteers can injure themselves or experience fatigue, monitor them closely to avoid danger
- Have a plan for addressing liability and injury issues including a volunteer waiver and release of liability form and volunteer work agreement
- Take the time up front to organize staff, volunteers and partner stakeholders in the planning stage.
- Another great resource in Utah to find volunteers, opportunities, and resources is JustServe.org
- Team Rubicon serves communities by mobilizing veterans to continue their service, leveraging their skills and experience to help people prepare, respond, and recover from disasters and humanitarian crises More information