Apple to donate $1 million plus matched employee contributions for California wildfire relief

Apple is donating $1 million outright and matching worker donations two-to-one to support relief efforts for the wildfires scorching northern Califoria.

The company revealed the details of its donations to the San Francisco Chronicle, following up on a Tuesday Twitter post by Apple CEO Tim Cook. At the time, Cook said only that Apple was "donating to aid relief efforts."

In fact Apple still hasn't said which charities it's supporting, although Apple typically favors the American Red Cross unless there are specific reasons to fund another group. Other major Bay Area technology firms — namely Facebook, Google, and Uber — have pledged donations to parties like the Napa Valley Community Foundation and the Red Cross California Wildfires Fund.

Fires have engulfed the Napa, Sonoma, and Santa Rosa regions of California, killing at least 23 people and causing massive property damage. While the media has often concentrated on wineries and wealthy residential areas impacted by the fires, many low-income communities have been torched as well.

The disaster is so widespread that smoke has spread into San Francisco, a city normally isolated from the effect of wildfires.

9 Comments

appex 11 Years · 670 comments

About 7 years ago

How to quickly extinguish forest fires

Just use a network of infrared satellites, seaplanes and helicopters to both extinguish fires in a few minutes after starting and catch pyromaniacs. Couple that with severe punishments. End of problem worldwide. But it seems that we are much more interested on communication satellites for basically 99% useless social networks.

dysamoria 12 Years · 3430 comments

appex said:

How to quickly extinguish forest fires
Just use a network of infrared satellites, seaplanes and helicopters to both extinguish fires in a few minutes after starting and catch pyromaniacs. Couple that with severe punishments. End of problem worldwide. But it seems that we are much more interested on communication satellites for basically 99% useless social networks.

It's not just arsonists. There are tons of other causes that are human-oriented. Campfires, lawn equipment, gunfire, downed power lines... these are just the few I remember after doing a read through of search engine results.

Also, fire can spread much faster than you think. Early detection and early arrival of firefighting isn't necessarily going to have a huge impact.

mikethemartian 18 Years · 1493 comments

I used to work for Agilent at their Fountaingrove Parkway campus in Santa Rosa. That area is incredibly beautiful. I am saddened by the destruction and loss of life caused by these wildfires.

macxpress 16 Years · 5913 comments

appex said:

How to quickly extinguish forest fires
Just use a network of infrared satellites, seaplanes and helicopters to both extinguish fires in a few minutes after starting and catch pyromaniacs. Couple that with severe punishments. End of problem worldwide. But it seems that we are much more interested on communication satellites for basically 99% useless social networks.

Sometimes these are started naturally by things such as lightning. Its not always a person who starts these. However yes, there should be severe penalties should someone get caught. Kinda hard to catch someone I think though.

cgWerks 8 Years · 2947 comments

dysamoria said:
It's not just arsonists. There are tons of other causes that are human-oriented. Campfires, lawn equipment, gunfire, downed power lines... these are just the few I remember after doing a read through of search engine results.

Also, fire can spread much faster than you think. Early detection and early arrival of firefighting isn't necessarily going to have a huge impact.

Yes, I think the majority of all the fire problem we had in British Columbia this summer were lightning related. It's actually the way nature works, and not necessarily a bad thing, until the fires meet where we live. And, yes, it can grow and happen really quickly in the right conditions. We've (BC) been really lucky in avoiding loss of human life, but as these fires in California show, that isn't always the case. :(