November 16, 2007

Wildfires in southern California burned an area more than twice the size of New York City and destroyed at least 2,100 homes. At least 10 people died in the blazes, and more reported deaths are possible as federal, state and local officials canvass rural areas of the disaster zone. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is accepting applications for Individual Assistance.

VULNERABLE COMMUNITIES WATCH

Among the dead were at least four victims suspected of being undocumented aliens. Pockets of undocumented individuals abound in the southern California border region, representing a large community in need of basic services but beyond the scope of government assistance.

Southern California's Native American community was also hard hit: the San Pasquel, Pauma. La Jolla, Santa Ysabel, Pala and Ricon tribes were affected. The La Jolla tribe seems to have suffered the worst damage, as burned-down power lines severed electricity from the tribe's reservation and prohibited the use of firefighting pumps to stop the blaze.

CWS RESPONSE

ERS Joanne Hale is in contact with California's Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (VOAD) community to determine efforts for long-term recovery. Long-term recovery groups were last operational following the 2003 wildfires and are still trying to organize for response to this disaster.

Project Proposal: emergency relief tools

Electricity has been out since the fires' start on several of these remote reservations. Residents lost electricity when the line attaching the predominately mobile homes burned in the fire. Residents in need include low-income, elderly, disabled and young families, who cannot afford to pay to have their homes re-attached to the power grid. All the while, many reservation homes are without electricity to power well pumps, refrigerators and other necessities.

Tribal leaders want to form a recovery coalition that will, among it first tasks, work on reattaching electrical lines with volunteer labor. The lines would be buried to protect them from future wildfires.

The work would focus on first helping the neediest tribal families on reservations like La Jolla that do not have any supplemental revenue from casinos.

This CWS project would supply basic tools (such as portable generators, shovels, etc.) to equip volunteers on the reservations.

Contributions to support this emergency appeal may be made online, sent to your denomination, or to Church World Service, P.O. Box 968, Elkhart, IN, 46515. Please designate: California Wildfires (Appeal # 6297).

Media Contact: Lesley Crosson, CWS/New York, 212-870-2676; lcrosson@churchworldservice.org Jan Dragin, 781-925-1526; jdragin@gis.net