Amazon's 'Wildfire Relief Hub' assists in LA relief efforts with supplies, tech
Amazon is helping communities affected by the devastating wildfires across LA county.
The e-commerce giant is using its Wildfire Relief Hub, located two hours east of Los Angeles and stocked with more than 6,000 essential items — as well as its logistics infrastructure and technology, to deliver needed iitems to first responders, non-profit partners and humanitarian relief agencies on the ground in Los Angeles. Amazon is assisting relief agencies including the American Red Cross, Salvation Army, Dream Center, International Medical Corps, and World Central Kitchen.
In addition to the Wildfire Relief Hub, it has also shipped Amazon-donated items such as wildfire mitigation equipment, water and canned food from across its supply chain network in Los Angeles county.
Amazon is also collaborating with local partners and emergency response agencies to assess technology needs, including providing its Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud technology that can be used for situational awareness support, aerial imagery collection and processing.
Amazon recently donated wildfire-management equipment to the Los Angeles Emergency Preparedness Foundation to replenish supplies used by first responders following the recent Franklin Fire containment efforts in Malibu.
With the temporary closing of some Amazon facilities and likely damage to roads and other infrastructure, Amazon says it will utilize its national network of storage and delivery to fulfill customer orders when it’s safe to do so from outside the affected region.
The company will also adjust delivery estimates as the wildfires’ impact becomes clearer. Customers in affected areas will see updated delivery times for their specific orders.
"Our top priority is ensuring the safety of our employees and partners," Amazon said in a corporate blog post. "We have a 24/7 operation dedicated to providing alerts and up-to-date information when severe events like this occur to help inform our operational decisions. As we closely monitor the situation, we’re also mobilizing our resources to support those in need."
Disaster Relief Hubs – a brief primer
The main purpose of what are now 14 global Disaster Relief Hubs is to enable the e-tail giant to use its logistics network to quickly send critical products to nonprofits and community partners in the wake of natural disasters.
[READ MORE: Amazon dedicates facility to storing emergency supplies]
The process of sending emergency supplies to disaster zones can take multiple days. To quicken that timeframe, Amazon analyzed its data across four years of disaster support and formed a pre-positioning strategy.
The strategy is tailored to the most common relief supplies needed by the company’s community partners, including tarps, tents, water containers and filters, medical equipment, clothing items, and kitchen supplies.
Since 2017, Amazon says it has donated over 25 million relief items to support more than 170 disasters worldwide.
