100% of donations to the Grand County Wildfire Emergency Fund will support the needs of Grand County residents who have been evacuated, displaced, or have lost their homes due to the East Troublesome Fire. We will work with our nonprofit partners as much as we can on the funding and then pay vendors directly for costs. The fund does not grant monies directly to individuals nor reimburse monies already paid. Please email completed application with pertinent documentaton to megan@grandfoundation.com.
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There were 366 homes and an additional 189 structures (barns, sheds, etc.) destroyed. Of the homes, roughly 204 were primary residences, approximately 25% were uninsured, and 32 of which were mobile homes. They are also calculating roughly over $190 million in damages. We have been noticing that these are very fluid numbers. The fire is just shy of 195,000 acres and 65% contained. They calculate that it won’t fully be out until the snow season is in full gear and possibly later than that.
At this point, we are mapping out our immediate, short-term, and long-term needs. This is a marathon, not a sprint, and will be over many years to come.
Immediate Needs
All of the needs will be continually replenished with funds as needed
Basic Needs (Food/Clothing/Household Needs)
We have given our family resource center (Mountain Family Center) monies to purchase gift cards for groceries, clothing, and furniture that will be distributed to renters and homeowners who lost their homes.
Shelter
We are working with the Grand County Emergency Response team. They are matching available units with those that are in need of housing. We gave additional monies to Mountain Family Center to distribute rental assistance to those in this category.
Mental Health
We have given Mind Springs Health $20,000 to provide scholarships to all of those affected by the East Troublesome Fire.
Debris Removal
We are renting equipment for Southern Baptist Colorado Relief. In this partnership, they have graciously offered to help with debris removal as we know it is a time consuming, expensive, and often underinsured on an insurance policy.
Grass Seed
We are giving monies to Middle Park Conservation District to purchase grass seed. In this partnership, they will be distributing grass seed at no charge, as we know it is one item that is typically not covered on an insurance policy.
Short-Term Needs
Renters
For renters who were renting units that were burned down, we are referring them to the recovery housing team to match them up with an available unit. Then with the funds are giving to Mountain Family Center, they can help those affected by helping pay for first and last month’s rent, get grocery cards and clothing at their location. We also plan on assisting, if they didn’t have renter’s insurance, on their housing needs (i.e. furniture). We have a couple of options here, we have a nonprofit that stores furniture from properties that sold, but the new owners didn’t want the items inside. We can also purchase gift cards for individuals to go shopping to get new things. We are still in the process of this one, working out the kinks, but do plan on using our nonprofit partners first if we can.
Home Owners
This is a work in progress as well. For those owners that have homeowner’s insurance, all of the above steps for pairing housing would apply, but typically here, their homeowner’s insurance will pay for the rent and any items they need inside the home. In the future, once things get worked out with their insurance companies, we are still wondering if the fund could help with insurance deductibles, legal fees, etc., but still in discussions.
The harder one here is if they didn’t have homeowner’s insurance. We have had many of these, that they owned a home on a property that was owned by someone else and didn’t insure the home. We are trying to figure out what threshold here applies. At the very least, all of the funding we gave above (and will continue to give as requested by our partners) will apply here with rental assistance, food, clothing, seed, and debris removal (while this lasts with the snow coming in). We will be updating this one as we go along.
Long-Term Needs
On this one we are in the beginning stages of how we will map this out and save funds for the things we are listing to help, but not limited to:
- Water Quality
- Re-Forestation
- Flood Mitigation & Prevention
- Nature Conservancy
- Mitigation efforts for our nonprofits and fire departments