Apple Donating to Wildfire Relief Efforts in California

Monday October 28, 2019 11:23 AM PDT by Juli Clover
Apple is planning to make a donation to help wildfire relief efforts in the state of California, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced on Twitter this morning.

It is fire season in California right now, and Sonoma County in Northern California is currently facing the Kincade fire, which has burned more than 65,000 acres and has required hundreds of thousands of people in the area to evacuate.

Image via the San Francisco Chronicle

Over the weekend, winds that reached close to 100 mph drove the fire further towards Santa Rosa, a major city in the area, and additional high winds are expected later this week. Combined with dry conditions, the higher winds California sees in October and November can be disastrous.


In Northern California, power company PG&E has been cutting power to millions of customers in an effort to avoid fires (PG&E was found responsible for last year's Camp Fire), but that didn't stop the Kincade fire.

There are fires raging in both Southern and Northern California at this time, and California Governor Gavin Newsom has declared a statewide emergency.

Apple also provided aid during last year's California fires and the 2017 Tubbs Fire that impacted Northern California.

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citysnaps
13 weeks ago


If you think Apple is “doing good,” then they have you fooled. They are protecting their investment, plain and simple. If they actually cared about making the world a better place, rather than just the immediate vicinity of their main talent pool and headquarters, then we’d see drastically better working conditions at their manufacturing partners. They care about their investments and news blurbs, not much else. The same can be said for any of the other large Silicon Valley companies.


^^ You’ve absolutely got the right idea.


What investments has Apple been protecting when they’ve donated millions to Katrina and dozens of other disaster reliefs over the years?
Rating: 4 Votes
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QCassidy352
13 weeks ago


What investments has Apple been protecting when they’ve donated millions to Katrina and dozens of other disaster reliefs over the years?

Indeed. They do this for most every major disaster.

the SF Bay Area is facing a very complex and serious set of problems right now. Big tech is not blameless, but they are also not solely to blame.

there’s a reason companies cluster like this, and it’s a good idea from a corporate standpoint to be in the cluster. (Also worth noting Apple has been here a lot longer than most.)

Apple also did not cause the perpetual drought conditions or 100 mph winds that are taking what should be controllable fires and making them nightmares. Nor did they cause PG&E to neglect their grid for decades, leading to both fire vulnerabilities and cascading power shut offs.

the bottom line here is that there is plenty of blame to go around here, but Apple giving money to those most hurt by the fires is a good thing. Period.
Rating: 3 Votes
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BWhaler
13 weeks ago
Thank you Apple.
Rating: 2 Votes
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ThisBougieLife
13 weeks ago


Gotta keep the local talent pool happy. God forbid Apple opens an office in a sensible location.


There’s no part of the U.S. that’s free of natural disasters. Make that the world, in fact.
Rating: 2 Votes
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m0sher
13 weeks ago
Thank you Apple for your donations / generosity when disasters strike in America.

God Bless those in Cali and keep them out of harms way.
Rating: 2 Votes
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konqerror
13 weeks ago


Gotta keep the local talent pool happy. God forbid Apple opens an office in a sensible location.


They have a major campus in Austin, which dates back to at least the PowerPC days, along with Sacramento, Seattle, New York, and rumored expansion plans either in Raleigh or Northern Virginia.

Cupertino was a perfectly reasonable place to have offices in 1976 and through the mid-2000s. You simply can't move an operation that's been there for 43 years.
Rating: 2 Votes
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konqerror
13 weeks ago


There’s no part of the U.S. that’s free of natural disasters. Make that the world, in fact.


The wildfires are human-created disasters, not natural ones. Wildfires are a natural process and are necessary for healthy ecosystem. For example, the Sequoia tree requires a wildfire to open its cones and reproduce. No fire = no Sequoias. Nature has evolved over millions of years to benefit from wildfires.

The reason why you have a problem is that people are building houses in places that are supposed to burn.

The second reason is that air quality bureaucrats, like CARB and BAAQMD refuse to let controlled burns occur in the amount that is necessary to clear flammable vegetation. They fail when there's a PM and Ozone exceedance, regardless of what caused it.
Rating: 1 Votes
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QCassidy352
13 weeks ago


Gotta keep the local talent pool happy. God forbid Apple opens an office in a sensible location.

Wow, really? These wildfires are a serious issue that affects millions of people (when you count the power shut offs), Apple does something good, and that’s what you’ve got?
Rating: 1 Votes
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PickUrPoison
13 weeks ago


If you think Apple is “doing good,” then they have you fooled. They are protecting their investment, plain and simple. If they actually cared about making the world a better place, rather than just the immediate vicinity of their main talent pool and headquarters, then we’d see drastically better working conditions at their manufacturing partners. They care about their investments and news blurbs, not much else. The same can be said for any of the other large Silicon Valley companies.



Gotta keep the local talent pool happy. God forbid Apple opens an office in a sensible location.

Immediate vicinity of their main talent pool and headquarters? You’ve got to be kidding. Santa Rosa is nowhere near Cupertino. And there’s a huge talent pool in Silicon Valley of exactly the type of people Apple needs; it’s a pretty sensible place for Apple to be. They’ve got a lot of other locations in the US including Austin, Seattle, San Diego, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, New York, Boulder, Boston, Portland, Nashville and Miami.

Find another complaint to try to make Apple look bad... this one is lame.
Rating: 1 Votes
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C DM
13 weeks ago


They are protecting their investment, plain and simple. If they actually cared about making the world a better place, rather than just the immediate vicinity of their main talent pool and headquarters

Apple hasn't been donating to all kinds of relief and other types of efforts in places well beyond the Silicon Valley, California, or even US? An "interesting" attempt at a spin there, but it just doesn't hold up.
Rating: 1 Votes
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