Rebuilding communities after losing everything

At the 2026 Wildfire Leadership Summit, After the Fire USA presents its Pay It Forward Award to its Volunteers of the Year: Casey Taylor, Superintendent of Achieve Charter Schools, and Paul Lowenthal, Division Chief and Fire Marshal of the Santa Rosa Fire Department.

Since 2018, After the Fire USA has paid it forward by walking into one community after another. The people who walk in with us are volunteers. We do not pay them. They believe in the model, and they show up the way they once needed someone to show up for them. The award recognizes extraordinary dedication to helping communities recover, rebuild, and reimagine after megafires. It started last year with 2025 Volunteer of the Year Brad Sherwood, Interim General Manager of Sonoma Water, who presents this year's honorees.

Paul Lowenthal has deployed with After the Fire USA since Maui in 2023 and has joined nine delegation trips to Los Angeles. When a community needs guidance on fire safety or government relations, Paul is the person to call.

Casey Taylor has done more for students than almost anyone we know. After losing her own home to fire, she responded to communities across the country and helped charter schools get back up and running. She also traveled with After the Fire USA to Washington, D.C., for two or three years, work that helped win the first round of disaster tax relief.

Casey, Paul, and Brad are each fire survivors who lost their homes: Casey in the Camp Fire, and Paul and Brad in the Tubbs Fire. Each stood back up for their community, which is an incredibly hard thing to do. Thank you for your extraordinary dedication to fire survivors. It is an honor to walk through this with them. Thank you to every volunteer who has said yes, again and again.

The Wildfire Leadership Summit is an invitation-only, three-day convening from After the Fire USA, an initiative of Rebuild NorthBay Foundation. 2026 Summit: September 15–17, 2026, The Hanna Center, Sonoma, California.

After the Fire: Recover. Rebuild. Reimagine.™
afterthefireusa.org