Episode 19: Quick Hits - Grace, Grief, and Megafires with Jennifer Grey Thompson

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How do communities recover after disaster? And what happens when leaders try to move forward quickly, speeding past a process that would honor what has been lost?

In this episode, Sean sits down with Jennifer Gray Thompson, founder of After the Fire USA. Jennifer has walked into some of the hardest-hit communities across the country, helping people navigate recovery after megafires.

They talk about what defines a megafire, why grief cannot be skipped, and how communities find strength not in strategy documents, but in each other. 

Jennifer offers sharp insight into what makes Los Angeles both powerful and vulnerable. She also shares what gives her hope after years of doing this work.  And how she cares for herself while caring for others.

If you care about climate, loss, leadership, or recovery, this conversation will stay with you.

Listen to hear:

• Why resilience requires opening ourselves to accept grace
• What makes megafires different from other disasters
• How communities like yours can show up for one another

Shared Ground is produced by Sean Knierim and Allan Marks. Thanks to Cory Grabow, Kara Poltor, Corey Walles (from The Recording Studio) for your support in launching this effort.

For more stories of resilience & rebuilding, kindness & generosity: visit shared-ground.com and subscribe to Sean's substack. We invite you to share your own stories of resilience at the Shared Ground website - whether in response to the January fires in LA or other situations.

Follow us at seanknierim.substack.com, Instagram, or wherever you listen to podcasts (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc).

Episode Transcript

Sean Knierim (00:00):
Thanks for being here with me, as we're part of
this whole day talking aboutresilience and rebuilding after
fires.
Could you introduce yourself?
Who are you and what are youdoing for a living these days?

Jennifer Gray Thompson (00:09):
So I am Jennifer Gray Thompson.
I am the founder and CEO of anonprofit called After the Fire
USA, and we help communitiesnavigate after megafires.

Sean Knierim (00:19):
And I'm guessing you've thought of this question
before but we're asking a lot offolks how they define
resilience.
Could you talk a bit about howyou yourself are defining
resilience?

Jennifer Gray Thompson (00:30):
So I think the thing about certain
words like sustainability andresilience is they become so
used over and over again that wedon't even have a physical
response anymore, other than abit of an ugh when we hear it.

Sean Knierim (00:42):
But the truth is is that resilience is something
that everybody has in some form,and I'm laughing at the UGG
question I just asked you, butI'm going to hold to it.

Jennifer Gray Thompson (00:51):
I mean, I get the irony in even saying
that for sure, but it issomething that we.
We actually build it our entirelives from the moment that we
are born and for some peoplethey have things happen in their
lives and as their lives andthey build resilience at the
time, often from trauma, andthey don't know that they're
doing it at the time.
And even when we're goingthrough hard times we can look

(01:12):
back and think I did not needthat character building lesson.
But then it comes in handy in away that we never expected it
to and I think resilience isiterative and it deserves grace.
I think resilience is iterativeand it deserves grace and we
have to know that, howeverresilient, we don't feel today
that we are going to achievethat in different ways as we
move through our lives.
That's definitely been myexperience.

(01:32):
I had a very I had a childhoodthat required resilience and
while it annoyed me at the time,I know that it very much
informed my ability to do thisreally hard work where I walk
into every single megafire inthe United States and I start to
help the people orientthemselves and make sure that
they're centering theircommunity recovery.

Sean Knierim (01:54):
How would you define a megafire?
What's in and out of a megafire?

Jennifer Gray Thompson (01:58):
Sure, so we use wildfire for so long,
but the truth is that megafireis really abnormal behavior.
It used to be defined byNational Geographic as 100,000
acres or more, and we would seethem sometimes, but we really
didn't see urban mega fires.
We really didn't see what wesee now.
And on October 8, 2017, I wokeup in the middle of the night to

(02:19):
a mega fire, and in my homecommunity of Sonoma, we lost
5,900 homes, and most in thefirst night, and I grew up there
and my husband grew up there.
I did not know we were openingup the era of megafires, but
what they really are is a firethat has an outsized impact on
the land and the people.
So, for example, in Lahaina, Imean, that's a fairly small

(02:40):
footprint of a fire, but 102people died.
It decimated a community andthey move really, really fast
because of the climate change.
Because of climate change andalso how we have built our homes
in these areas and how we liveand how we landscape.
And it's not a blame thing,it's not that.
It's just in order to buildresiliency.

(03:01):
We actually have to think aboutthe ways that we're living and
building to make megafires rare.

Sean Knierim (03:08):
I asked you a question when we were on a Zoom
a month ago and you gave me ananswer that really changed how
I'm looking at a lot of things.
I'm going to give you a bonusquestion, which I did not set
you up for, but is you've beensupporting communities that have
grappled with these challengesfor a number of years now and I
know you've studied stuff allover the world.
I asked you a question abouthow would you characterize Los

(03:32):
Angeles both Altadena and thePalisades.
I remember asking are we reallydifferent?
You're like no, you're kind ofthe same, but then you described
how you were seeing us.
Can you share that?

Jennifer Gray Thompson (03:42):
I can.
I hope I get it right this time, too.
It's you are doers, you arecreators, you are producers, and
you highly value competency,and that's great and will help
you so much to innovate your waythrough this.
My worry, I think the falseline really in your resilience,
though, is you can't skip overthe grief.
I think there's a deep desirehere to do that, and I am trying

(04:07):
to slow that desire, you know,to get people to invite it in
and to live with it and tounderstand that, while they
didn't deserve, nobody deservedwhat happened to them, and they
didn't ask for it.
But you know, grief is part ofthe journey, as you're walking
all the way home.

Sean Knierim (04:21):
You said earlier that resilience deserves grace
it does.
What do you mean by?

Jennifer Gray Thompson (04:27):
that I think that we're very
self-blaming in many ways.
We're like well, why can't Ijust do this better?
I've actually seen this a lothere, in particular, as people
who are used to having highlevels of competency in
everything they do and then allof a sudden they're confronted
with this thing, but they haveno idea and very few real skills

(04:47):
about how to go through it andhow to walk through it.
And I think the most importantthing is to realize why would
you have those skills?
You've never done this before.
That's why a community like theone that we've built needs to
come in and wrap ourselvesaround you and welcome you into
the worst club with the verybest people who want to walk you

(05:07):
all the way home.
It's incredibly hard whensomething terrible has happened
in your life to also welcome thegrief, because it feels like
this is all but done to you.
And then you're looking for andthen a lot of people show up
and they offer to do things foryou, and now you are in the
whole secondary phase offiguring out who is still
wanting to do things to youfraud, for example and who is

(05:28):
here to do things for you, andthen who is just here to sell
you things.

Sean Knierim (05:32):
Yeah, and I remember the asking for help was
really hard.
Accepting help in some ways waseven harder when your job
forever at least my pristine jobwas always giving that help.
So, as your last question andthis one was actually on the
schedule of questions for you,where, where are you getting
hope?

Jennifer Gray Thompson (05:51):
the way that I define hope is that it's
what people say no, I'm gonnastart again, okay.
So when a disaster happens,people do not read, for they
don't reach for books.
They don't even reach for, youknow, binders to tell them what
to do.
They reach for people to tellthem what do, to show them how
to do it and to help walk themhome, no matter how vulnerable
they feel about doing that.

(06:12):
And what I learned during ourfires is that everything I had
been told about how people treateach other when something
terrible happens was not true.
In fact, what happens is thatpeople, they turn towards each
other, they do not turn away,and for me, that the river of
humanity and kindness that runsthrough the space of disaster is

(06:32):
what always gives me hope,always.
And then, watching people overand over and over again, whether
it's in a tiny frontier townlike Greenville or a large city
and county like Los Angeles, Isee them show up for each other
over and over again in the mostextraordinary ways, and my job
is to really help them do thatfor a long, sustained period of

(06:54):
time.
And that actually builds softinfrastructure, and that is the
core of resilience.

Sean Knierim (07:01):
How are you taking care of yourself while you're
trying to provide the supportand resources to so many others
that are going through hardtimes?

Jennifer Gray Thompson (07:08):
Well, the first thing is it's not my
disaster and I know that walkinginto it and so that part's
really helpful.
I have a very good home life, Ihave a really good husband, I
have a we're stable financially,like there are certain things
that if I didn't have any one ofthose things, I wouldn't be
able to do it.
But I also understand that atcertain periods of time I'm not

(07:28):
going to be doing as well asother times and I have to be
honest about it.
I have to make sure that myhusband knows.
Like last year there was aperiod of time where I was
holding so much sadness fromMaui that I was off.
I just felt off and I said I'msaid it, just I'm not, I'm
feeling this too hard, I don'thave the distance that I need,
and so I made sure that I tooklike an extra five days by

(07:51):
myself.
I went to Mexico alone and Ijust like sat there by a pool, a
part of where I said no bigdeal, but I have to do a lot of
things and I'm always failing atit at some stage.
To be clear, I really am.
I don't ride bikes for 400miles.
I, you know, I don't do a lotof the things that I need to do,
but I can also tell you that,over the almost eight years that

(08:13):
I've been doing this full time,that my strategies have changed
, but I always have a strategy,and a lot of it, too, is being
honest about how I'm feeling.

Sean Knierim (08:21):
Thank you for being honest with me.

Jennifer Gray Thompson (08:23):
My pleasure.