Chef José Andrés announced that the relief team from his humanitarian organization World Central Kitchen has gone to Australia to assist in local recovery efforts as wildfires continue to rage on, saying that the the organization and volunteers “will do whatever we can to support affected residents and firefighters on the front lines of this war with our changing climate.”
In video in a tweet featuring World Central Kitchen relief administration manager Zomi Frankcom, heavy smoke is visible as she discusses plans to work with local chefs and organizations to begin food preparation delivery. “We are getting some eyes on some of the evacuations centers, and checking up on some of the communities to see how they're going,” she says.
But as the deadly fires continue to burn millions of acres, Frankcom warns of even more possible devastation: “There’s been around 400 fires that have been burning in the state of New South Wales alone, which for scale is slightly larger than the state of Texas. There’s some risk that some of these fires may join up and create mega fires.
“It’s been a really nerve-wracking time for a lot of families and communities,” she said.
In another video, World Central Kitchen director of field operations Sam Bloch spoke to a number of local volunteers assisting at a makeshift relief center for evacuees who are passing through now that more roads have been opened. One volunteer told him, “We’ve been here for about three days now, andseen probably about 200 people come through. We’re expecting way more because a lot of the evacuation centers are starting to become affected by the fires, and the roads are now opening up for them to be able to move on, ‘cause they’ve been closed for quite some time.”
Bloch said that some evacuees passing through have animals with them, including horses. The fires have also been catastrophic in terms of animal loss: A fellow of the Australian Academy of Science estimated that as many 480 million animals have died in the fires. In a separate video, Bloch spoke to Chad Staples, a local zoo director who “saved all the animals from the fires as everything burned around,” Andrés said.
In a Monday update, World Central Kitchen said that there was some good news: “It’s been raining, which has helped stop the spread of fires. Bad news: Hot and dry weather is returning later this week.”
The start of its work in Australia mirrors efforts that World Central Kitchen has previously made following a number of natural disasters, such as California’s wildfires and hurricanes Dorian and Maria, and other disasters created by the current U.S. administration, such as asylum-seekers languishing at the U.S.-Mexico border and federal workers furloughed by last year’s government shutdown.