In this episode of How to Disaster, Jennifer Gray Thompson talks with Tennis Wick, former Permit Sonoma Building Department Director, about what local government becomes after a megafire. Drawing from Sonoma County’s 2017 fires, Tennis reflects on the early chaos, the emotional weight carried by public servants, and the responsibility of serving people who have lost nearly everything.

Together, Jennifer and Tennis discuss why disaster recovery cannot be measured only by permits, dashboards, or houses rebuilt. They explore the importance of compassion inside bureaucratic systems, from creating separate spaces for fire survivors to helping people move through permitting with dignity, patience, and care.

The conversation also looks at leadership across Sonoma County, Maui, and Los Angeles, including the role of elected officials, block captains, mutual aid, and community trust. Tennis offers a grounded view of what recovery asks of local government: honesty, humility, creativity, and a willingness to solve problems instead of only naming barriers.

Resources:

• How to Disaster
• Learn more about After the Fire USA
• After the Fire USA Resource Library
• Connect with Jennifer Gray Thompson on LinkedIn

Produced by NOVA

In this episode of How to Disaster, Jennifer speaks with Alex Athenson of the Foothill Catalog Foundation and Chris Corbett of Altadena Collective about rebuilding after the Eaton Fire.

Both guests bring an architectural lens to recovery, but their work begins with survivors, community identity, and the emotional weight of coming home. Together, they explore how thoughtful design, pre-approved plans, community listening, and practical support can make rebuilding more affordable, more humane, and less overwhelming.

This conversation offers a grounded look at what it takes to rebuild not just houses, but trust, belonging, and hope.

Resources:

• How to Disaster
• Learn more about After the Fire USA
• After the Fire USA Resource Library
• Foothill Catalog Foundation
• Altadena Collective
• Connect with Jennifer Gray Thompson on LinkedIn

Produced by NOVA

Ash Level is AN ATLADENA NATIVE AND the founder of Altadena Rising, an organisation born from the Eaton Fire that is focused on empowering survivors and filling the gaps that outside institutions consistently miss. Nicole Huguenin is part of Maui Rapid Response, a hub within a wider network of organisations that has been doing care at scale since the Lahaina fire and through four major storms since.

Both of them stepped into leadership not because they wanted to, but because their communities needed someone who actually knew them to stand up. Both are still going, long after the cameras moved on.

In this episode, Ash and Nicole join Jennifer Gray Thompson to talk about what emergent community-led recovery actually looks like from the inside: the historical distrust that shapes how their communities receive outside help, why institutional systems consistently fail the most vulnerable, how they navigate funders who want KPIs for work that cannot always be quantified, and what it costs personally to show up every day for people in the worst moments of their lives.

They also talk about Kuleana, the Hawaiian concept of collective responsibility to care for the land, family, and community, what it means to triage by trauma, why being a reliable narrator is the foundation of staying power, and what it looked like for Nicole to visit Altadena and finally begin processing grief she had been carrying since Lahaina.

This is a conversation about care, community, and what real recovery requires of the people who refuse to walk away.

Resources:

• How to Disaster
• Learn more about After the Fire USA
• After the Fire USA Resource Library
• Altadena Rising on Instagram
• Maui Rapid Response
• Cultural Fire Management Council
• Connect with Jennifer Gray Thompson on LinkedIn

Produced by NOVA

In this episode, Jennifer Gray Thompson speaks with Tyler Freres about what it can mean to rebuild with wood after a megafire. Tyler shares the story of his family’s long-standing timber business in Oregon’s Santiam Canyon, how the Beachie Creek Fire affected both the community and their forestland, and why the recovery of burned timber matters for local economies, land restoration, and future resilience.

The conversation also looks at mass timber and mass plywood panels, including how engineered wood can perform in fire, earthquakes, high wind events, and other hazards when it is designed thoughtfully. Tyler explains why many assumptions about wood, steel, concrete, and fire resistance are more complicated than they first appear, and how prefabricated wood systems can help buildings go up more efficiently.

Throughout the episode, Jennifer and Tyler return to a larger question: how do we care for forests, communities, and rebuilding in ways that are practical, ecologically responsible, and hopeful? Listeners will come away with a clearer understanding of forest management, fire-safe construction, and the possibility that beauty and resilience do not have to be treated as opposites.

Resources:

• How to Disaster
• Learn more about After the Fire USA
• After the Fire USA Resource Library
• Freres Engineered Wood
• Connect with Jennifer Gray Thompson on LinkedIn

Produced by NOVA

In this episode of How to Disaster, Jennifer Gray Thompson speaks with cartoonist and author Brian Fies about A Fire Story, his graphic memoir about losing his home in the 2017 Tubbs Fire. Brian shares how the book began in the first days after the fire, when he was still trying to understand what had happened while also documenting it with the eyes of a storyteller.

Their conversation moves through the realities of disaster recovery: walking through a destroyed neighborhood, navigating insurance, rebuilding, accepting help, and learning what people actually need in the aftermath. Brian also reflects on the role of block captains, neighbors, local leadership, and the quiet ways communities begin to organize when everything familiar has been disrupted.

Jennifer and Brian also talk about memory, art, humor, grief, and the strange mix of loss and connection that can follow disaster. This episode offers a grounded look at what it means to survive, rebuild, and carry both the old life and the new one forward.

Resources:

• How to Disaster
• Learn more about After the Fire USA
• After the Fire USA Resource Library
• LA Rising Podcast with Kim Marshall
• Watch Duty App
• A Fire Story by Brian Fies
• Community Brigade Malibu
• Connect with Jennifer Gray Thompson on LinkedIn

Produced by NOVA: https://novapodcasting.com

A home can be rebuilt after wildfire and still be hard to keep if insurance becomes unaffordable or unavailable. Jennifer Gray Thompson talks with Jen Goodlin of Rebuild Paradise Foundation and Valerie Brown, an insurance and disaster recovery expert, about the long, complicated work of helping people get all the way home.

Together, they look at one of the biggest barriers in recovery: insurance, including why prepared homes are not always recognized by insurers and how communities can create practical pathways toward safer, more affordable rebuilding. Jen shares what Paradise has learned since the Camp Fire, from defensible space grants to rebuilding an entire town with a different understanding of risk. Valerie brings nearly two decades of disaster recovery experience, offering a clear view of how insurance, preparedness, and local leadership shape what recovery actually looks like on the ground.

The conversation also challenges the way recovery is often measured. Instead of reducing communities to housing percentages or comparisons between disasters, Jen and Valerie ask what it means to come back safer, more resilient, and more connected to the people and places being rebuilt.

Resources:

• How to Disaster
• Learn more about After the Fire USA
• After the Fire USA Resource Library
• LA Rising Podcast with Kim Marshall
• Watch Duty App
• Community Brigade Malibu
• Connect with Jennifer Gray Thompson on LinkedIn

Produced by NOVA

Cecelia Girr is Director of Cultural Strategy at Backslash, the cultural intelligence unit of Omnicom Advertising, and the author of Ready Is the New Well, a landmark report for the Global Wellness Institute on preparedness as a cultural movement. Kim Marshall is the host of LA Rising: Stories of Healing, Help, and Hope, a podcast born from the LA fires.

In this special double-hosted episode, Cecelia joins Jennifer Gray Thompson and Kim Marshall to talk about what the data actually shows: why extreme weather is no longer extreme, why the 2030s will be defined by resilience, and how preparedness has moved from the fringes of doomsday prepper culture into the mainstream.

They cover fear-based messaging and why it drives paralysis rather than action, Yale research showing that small acts of preparedness reduce anxiety and depression, the role of technology in democratising disaster readiness, the rise of disaster-literate social media creators and brands designing for emergencies, and why social connection turns out to be the strongest predictor of survival after a disaster. Jennifer also talks about the Watch Duty app, block captains, and the third way between paralysis and denial.

This is a conversation about culture, data, and what it actually looks like when a society decides to get ready.

Resources:

• How to Disaster
• Learn more about After the Fire USA
• After the Fire USA Resource Library
• Ready Is the New Well - Global Wellness Institute
• Backslash at Omnicom Advertising
• LA Rising Podcast with Kim Marshall
• Watch Duty App
• Community Brigade Malibu
• Connect with Jennifer Gray Thompson on LinkedIn

Produced by NOVA

Jennifer Gray Thompson speaks with Eaton Fire survivor, journalist, and PostFire co-founder iO Wright about what happens when a person loses their home and is suddenly forced to navigate a recovery system that is confusing, fragmented, and often hard to access. iO shares how he and his partner, Patty, turned their own experience of loss into PostFire, a revolutionary survivor-centered platform designed to offer clear, fact-checked, trauma-informed guidance for people rebuilding after fire.

Their conversation looks at the gaps survivors face around insurance, housing, FEMA, debris removal, donations, rebuilding costs, and information overload. It also explores why dignity, choice, and trusted communication matter so much after disaster, especially when people are exhausted and trying to make decisions that will shape the next several years of their lives.

At its heart, this episode is about what becomes possible when survivors are listened to, supported, and trusted as experts in their own recovery.

Resources:

• How to Disaster
• Learn more about After the Fire USA
• After the Fire USA Resource Library
• PostFire
• iO Wright
• PostFire on Instagram
• Connect with Jennifer Gray Thompson on LinkedIn

Produced by NOVA