After the Fire USA 2026

I just spent 1.5 days at a 2.5-day conference hosted by After The Fire USA, a nonprofit I love and support that was founded by Jennifer Gray Thompson and others after our 2017 firestorms. After the Fire USA supports communities that have faced similar devastating fires--sadly, there's no shortage of them--and lobbies local, state and federal lawmakers on behalf of fire victims. 

The conference was held in Sonoma, Calif., less than an hour from my house, and drew approximately 250 (?) attendees from across the country and internationally. There were fire victims, firefighters, fire prevention specialists, city planners, architects, healthcare providers and more. I met people from Spokane, Altadena, Pacific Palisades, Malibu, Paradise, Santa Cruz, Lahaina, Alberta Canada, and other places whose names you only saw in the news because they burned.

One of the themes of the conference was "If you've seen one fire, you've seen one fire," meaning that while big fires have similarities, each is also unique. The Hawaiians from Lahaina look to be recovering from their August 2023 wildfire better--or at least differently--than most. Rebuilding seems centered on what people most want and need, including restoring some historic waterways to their pre-colonial states. Based on what I heard from them the past couple of days, Lahaina has a lot to teach other disaster-damaged communities (building on what they learned from After the Fire USA and others who'd been down that path before them). They're doing some interesting work. 

I found the event unexpectedly emotional. Our fire is never far from my mind, of course, particularly since I still give talks on the book I wrote about it, but I haven't been surrounded by that many people who'd survived similar crises, some quite recently, for a long time. It is, as the motto of After the Fire USA says, "the worst club with the best people." I found it warm but intense. Had to take a couple of laps around the patio sometimes. 

I think it was good for me. It at least felt instructional and constructive, and I was honored to be invited.

Approaching the event space, the Hanna Center in Sonoma. The patio to the left had places for people to meet and eat, plus tables of vendors around its perimeter. Talks and panels happened in the big room to the right...

...which looked like this. I took this photo first thing in the morning, before it filled in. It's a great space, with some of the smoothest AV and tech crew I've encountered. Food and drink were swell. The conference took good care of us.

An adjoining lounge/green room offered relevant books, including mine, available for a donation to the cause. Organizers bought 25 copies of A Fire Story and by the end of the event were almost sold out. Of course I signed them all, and got a chance to personalize some for people who said it meant a lot to them. That's very gratifying.

Another author present was teenager Leela Bahador, who wrote her children's book Wildfires to Wildflowers following the Pacific Palisades blaze in 2025. We coincidentally wound up sitting at the same table and had a nice conversation about the writer's life. Turns out I'm old. (Photo by Jennifer Gray Thompson)

I spent quite a while talking with a man whose name I didn't catch from an organization called The Foothill Catalog Foundation, which serves survivors of the Altadena and Pacific Palisades fires by presenting them with dozens of pre-approved, ready-to-build house plans that retain the historical architectural aesthetic of the community and are meant to fit onto typical sized lots.

Man, we could have used something like that after our fire! Our rebuild process was absurdly haphazard, and although a few big builders came to community meetings with prospective floorplans, we didn't like any of them (and some of them ultimately turned out to be crooks who took people's money and didn't deliver). If a group like this had come to us and said, "Here are a bunch of designs that will look good in your neighborhood and fit on your lot," it would have made our lives much easier. 

A panel of folks from Lahaina who told very interesting stories about their recovery work to date (with some of us sadly and sympathetically understanding how far they have to go). I don't want to idealize or romanticize anyone, but their focus on history, family and community felt unusually strong.