Fight fire with funds
How Redwood Credit Union pushed more than $30 million to communities impacted by the most destructive wildfire in California state history.
October 8, 2017, was like any other Sunday for Redwood Credit Union ($4.4B, Santa Rosa, CA). But business as usual was about to change.
At close to 10 p.m. a fire started in the town of Calistoga. Boosted by 40 miles per hour wind gusts, the fire moved more than 12 miles in its first three hours and reached the city limits of Santa Rosa by 1 a.m. The credit union’s fire notification system kicked on that night, alerting Cynthia Negri, Redwood’s chief operating officer, to the fact the location of the next day’s all-staff meeting was on fire and the credit union’s corporate office was in the fire impact zone.
Known now as the Tubbs Fire, this was one of at least 14 fires that raged in Northern California that night. By the time it was fully contained on Oct. 31, the Tubbs Fire burned nearly 37,000 acres and incinerated more than 5,700 structures, including nearly 3,000 homes. According to an estimate from Santa Rosa’s mayor, the fire caused $1.2 billion in damage and destroyed 5% of the city’s housing stock. It’s the most destructive wildfire in California history.
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