The California Association of Realtors is collecting donations that it plans to distribute to members who have lost their homes or other property in the state’s ongoing wildfires.
Money from C.A.R.’s Disaster Relief Fund is available to Realtors, C.A.R. members, and their staff who have “incurred substantial losses due to wildfires.” The funds are paid out in grants ranging from $1,000 to $10,000.
The disaster fund was established after a particularly destructive set of wildfires besieged California in 2003. Its use isn’t limited to fires — funds have gone to victims of Hurricane Sandy the Japanese earthquake and tsunami in 2011 — though wildland mega blazes are the most frequent disaster Californians face.
According to C.A.R., the fund has provided more than $1.6 million in disaster relief since 2003, including 30 grants totaling $323,992 during last year’s fires.
The fires currently raging in the Golden State have caused a record-breaking amount of destruction. In Northern California, the Camp Fire had grown to 125,000 acres as of Tuesday afternoon. It has also killed 42 people and destroyed 6,000 homes, making it both the state’s most deadly and most destructive wildfire in recorded history.
In Southern California, more than 100,000 acres and over 400 homes have burned in the Woolsey and other fires near the border between Los Angeles and Ventura Counties.
In describing the Disaster Relief Fund, C.A.R. pointed out that “thousands of people of have been displaced and need homes” as a result of the ongoing fires.
Those who would like to make donations to the fund can do so online, or in person at the California Community Foundation in downtown Los Angeles.
People who would like to request assistance from the fund can call (213) 739-8297, or email sharlenab@car.org. For more information, visit C.A.R.’s website.