How do you recover from something like a wildfire?

Five years ago, for some Oregon residents, the world burned down. A severe windstorm and dry conditions saw out-of-control fires explode around the state on September 7th and 8th in 2020. They raged through communities like Gates, Detroit and Otis in Northwest Oregon, and Talent and Phoenix in Southern Oregon. What became known as the Labor Day Fires burned more than four thousand homes and more than a million acres of land in Oregon, making 2020 the state’s most destructive wildfire season on record.

So, what do you do? When a catastrophe strikes? When your community turns to ash? When you lose things that made you who you are?

OPB environmental reporters Cassandra Profita and April Ehrlich covered the 2020 fires in different parts of Oregon, Cassandra for OPB and April for our news partner, Jefferson Public Radio. They both join us this week to talk about fire recovery: what makes it so hard, how it changes us, the ways we help each other, and what recovery even means.

OPB’s weekly podcast creates an audio portrait of the Pacific Northwest. We tell the stories of the people, places, communities and cultures that make up this region. It’s a podcast about the place YOU live, the places you love, and the geography you feel connected to.