When a red flag warning was issued in Los Angeles on January 7, a team at Amazon started reaching out to local nonprofits and fire agencies. In a warehouse outside the city—around 60 miles east, in San Bernadino County—the company had opened a wildfire disaster relief hub just months earlier, stocked with free firefighting equipment, from axes to boots to trauma kits.
The hub, which sits inside part of a regular Amazon fulfillment center, is one of 14 disaster hubs that the company now runs around the world, donating all of the supplies and logistics support. The work started in 2017, after conversations with nonprofits about the challenges of logistics in a crisis. “The more we spoke with first responders and nonprofits, we realized that it’s really, really hard to procure the right items at the speed that they’re needed,” says Bettina Stix, director of disaster relief and food security for Amazon Community Impact.
Dispatches From The Front 