By Ann McCreary
As the one-year anniversary of the Carlton Complex Fire approaches, an online campaign to raise money to rebuild homes lost in the fire has been launched by the Carlton Complex Long Term Recovery Group (CCLTRG).
The campaign offers a monetary match of up to $250,000 for any donation made until midnight of July 18, meaning every donation will be doubled.
The matching funds have been pledged by an anonymous donor, said Carlene Anders, executive director of CCLTRG.
Donations can be made online at www.carltoncomplexrecovery.com/donate.
The goal of CCLTRG is to raise about $4.3 million to rebuild 42 homes for people who were uninsured or underinsured and determined by disaster case managers to be among the most vulnerable residents — elderly, people with medical concerns, families with children, and people unable to qualify for low-interest financing to rebuild on their own.
The homes are being constructed in phases. Thirteen homes are included in the first phase, which includes two mobile homes that have already been put in place and are now occupied, Anders said.
Seven of the remaining 11 homes are under construction and all are expected to be completed by the end of the winter, Anders said. The Phase 1 homes include three in the Methow Valley, two in Pateros, two in the Malott/Chiliwist area, and five in Brewster.
The next phase will rebuild 15 homes and in 2016 the final phase will complete 14 homes, if enough funds can be raised, Anders said.
Materials and labor
The $4.3-million fundraising goal includes $3.6 million for materials to rebuild the homes at a cost of $90,000 each. Much of the labor to build the homes is being donated by volunteer groups, many of them from faith-based organizations. CCLTRG estimated that $400,000 in volunteer labor has already been provided.
The remaining $700,000 is needed to pay disaster case managers, who help individual fire and flood victims, and to pay CCLTRG’s executive director, volunteer coordinator, reconstruction project manager and development and communications consultant through 2016.
Anders said the recovery organization has received about $1.3 million in contributions to date, and hopes to secure pledges for the full amount of funding needed by the one-year anniversary of the fire this month.
The CCLTRG has received fiscal sponsorship from the Community Foundation of North Central Washington, a nonprofit organization.
The recovery group was formed as a grassroots organization soon after the Carlton Complex Fire. It is made up of three representatives from each of the geographic areas most damaged by the fire — the Methow Valley, Pateros/Brewster and Okanogan/Malott.
The Carlton Complex Fire began as separate fires ignited by lighting storms on July 14, 2014, near Texas Creek Road, Stokes Road, French Creek and Cougar Flat.
Three days later the fires grew and merged into an enormous wildfire fed by wind, low humidity, high temperatures and tinder-dry vegetation. On July 17 it roared down the valley and descended on Pateros.
The fire, the largest in Washington state history, destroyed more than 300 homes and burned more than 400 square miles.
