This week on Inland Journal, a program with a wildfire theme, in honor of the Spokane community that's embracing people who lost their homes during the August 1wildfires.
We talk with Jennifer Gray Thompson, a woman who created an organization called After the Fire. It was her response to her own experience losing a home to wildfire in northern California. She is likely to be involved in helping Spokane recover from this round of wildfires. We’ll talk with her about that.
"Our main function is to teach the leaders of these communities disaster so that they can better serve and they're not trying to relearn everything over and over again. Building new systems and learning this brand new language of disaster is really tough. We make it easier on these communities so that they can have hopefully a smoother path on the way home. It's a very hard road to rebuild."
The Washington Insurance Commissioner’s office is answering questions from homeowners about how to submit claims and other relevant issues. We’ll talk about that with Commissioner Patty Kuderer.
"Each situation is unique, but I would say that it's never too early to start putting your papers together and gathering information and taking photographs if it's safe for you to go back to your home. Things like that. And our folks, our team, can help people identify what sorts of steps to take. We actually created a toolkit that they'll be able to take and to utilize in just this situation."
We’ll meet with Northwest Public Broadcasting reporter Anna King, who was in Spokane this week to report on the fires.
"I saw one neighborhood blocked off by trash cans and cones that they had just assembled in the neighborhood, and a big sign stating, if you're not from this neighborhood, kindly blank off. And I just thought it was really interesting that people are trying to protect what they have and the people that are in their immediate vicinity."