Volunteers with Team Rubicon are among the many responding to deadly wildfires in and around Los Angeles. Here's how they're helping.
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00:00Art De La Cruz is CEO of the team Rubicon. Art, thank you so much for joining us. I know this is a
00:07very, very busy time. Can you just tell us the latest? And your team's called Grace Search
00:14are not fighting the fires, but where are they mobilized to help and what are they seeing?
00:21Yeah, you know, our volunteers like the rest of, you know, Los Angeles are really concentrating on
00:26our efforts on ensuring the firefighters and those first responders can do the things they
00:31need to serve our communities. As they are doing that, team Rubicon and our volunteers,
00:35who we call Grace Search, are surging to meet some of these, you know, other tasks that come up.
00:41Points of distribution, it might be water, it might be food. We're doing some quick reaction
00:45forces that they're going out there to remove fuels in areas that they don't want to be
00:51impacted by the fires. And I think we're all positioning for the winds this evening and into
00:55tomorrow and the services that will be needed at that point in time. And Art, you know, we've spoken
01:01with you and our teams have interviewed you many times. I didn't realize that team Rubicon is based
01:06in Los Angeles. So how have the Grace Search been impacted themselves, even as they're helping their
01:11neighbors down the road? You know, it's really interesting. I think there's two ways to look at
01:16it. Number one is we pride ourselves on personal resilience. So we've had a lot of Grace Search
01:21that have been impacted. You know, they've stood by and executed the evacuation orders. And in some
01:26cases, you know, they've been impacted and the rest of the volunteers have come to help them.
01:30The other thing we've done is a really, really great job of, you know, integrating with the
01:35emergency management system in Los Angeles and building our volunteer density. We actually have
01:4112,000 volunteers from all walks of life that are trained and ready to go. And now it's a matter of
01:46coordinating them and surging them into these areas in the weeks and the coming months to serve
01:51these communities. Now, Art, the forecast doesn't look great here with the high winds and potentially
01:59those winds escalating this week. How does the weather change your work? Yeah, I think, you know,
02:06the winds obviously increase the danger and it increases the importance of some of the work we
02:11can do. If we're asked to remove some of the fuels and areas away from the existing fires in hopes
02:16that perhaps it breaks it, breaks the fuel chain, you know, that's incredibly, you know, important.
02:22And I think even, you know, farther into the future, we're already having conversations about
02:28how we can aid with sandbagging and preparations because we know, again, in these, you know,
02:33atypical situations, you know, in the history of atmospheric rivers and rains that will come at
02:38some point in time, that type of stabilization is going to be really critical. And that's where
02:43volunteers can come in to help in this long process of recovery. All right. Well, Art De La Cruz
02:49with Team Rubicon. You guys have fought many good fights in the past. We appreciate that you're
02:54fighting a very worthy fight right now there in Southern California. Thanks for your time as well.
02:58Thank you. Yeah, thanks for having me. All right. It is our pleasure.