Abstract
Existing research indicates that NGOs can serve important roles during recovery from wildfires and other hazard events. Yet there is less work exploring the specific, place-based conditions that influence NGOs participating in the recovery process, or the specific tactics they might use when facilitating the transfer of knowledge and resources that meet emergent recovery needs. The research presented here draws on 61 interviews with 79 residents and professionals involved in recovery from the 2020 East Troublesome Fire in Colorado to examines the roles, capacities, and strategies deployed by NGOs to meet emergent short-term and longer-term community recovery needs. Our results suggest that NGOs performed important response functions for impacted residents during the immediate response phase that positioned them in central roles for the longer-term recovery process. Residents and professionals indicated how pre-existing relationships and knowledge of unique, place-based local conditions allowed NGOs to mobilize effectively in the aftermath of the East Troublesome Fire, starting with the delay of a major disaster declaration that released federal recovery funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). NGOs established a structure to share responsibilities and channel information or resources about recovery that had carried through into longer term capacity to address site specific issues arising from the East Troublesome Fire, including elongated rebuilding times, a lack of available short-term housing, and limited capacity or willingness of local governments and residents to engage in traditional avenues for federal assistance. That being said, participants also articulated how a lack of expertise about disaster relief and the rigorous task of recovery organization stressed the limited capacity of local NGOs and emergency professionals. This study suggests that better understanding and articulating local organizational capacities before fire events can increase the effectiveness of NGO recovery responses by strategically positioning them in ways that allow for the adaptability to respond to unique, context-specific needs of local populations that existing recovery systems might not be able to address. Likewise, incorporating knowledge of local conditions into disaster recovery planning efforts can help improve communication between local NGOs and extra-local entities, facilitating collaboration and improving the speed and cohesiveness of post-disaster response.