Recording Academy, MusiCares Donate $1 Million in Fire Relief Efforts

As wildfires continue to roar throughout Los Angeles and surrounding areas, the Recording Academy and MusiCares have launched the Los Angeles Fire Relief Effort to support music professionals impacted by the crisis, and made a combined pledge of $1 million to kick off the efforts.

“The entire Grammy family is shocked and deeply saddened by the situation that is unfolding in Los Angeles,” said Harvey Mason jr., CEO of the Recording Academy and MusiCares. “The music community is being so severely impacted but we will come together as an industry to support one another. Our organizations exist to serve music people because music is a powerful force for good in the world, and we hope the broader industry will now rally to this cause.”

Laura Segura, executive director of MusiCares, also shared, “We expect the disaster relief efforts in Los Angeles to be extraordinary, if even just on the basis of how many music people have lost their homes in the last day. MusiCares is always committed to ensuring that music professionals are supported in times of crisis, and we ask for the larger community to donate for those in need at this dire time. MusiCares can help with short term emergent needs for those currently displaced, and then longer-term services as we get a handle on the full extent of how music people are impacted.”

In the latest updates to the wildfires, roughly 180,000 Angelenos remain displaced as the Eaton and Palisades fires have burned over 9,000 structures, claimed the lives of at least 10 people and resulted in preliminary estimates of $52-57 billion in damages; these harrowing statistics — driven by Southern California’s excessively dry weather conditions and the fierce Santa Ana winds propelling embers forward — have catapulted the disaster to among the most destructive wildfires in the state’s history.

As of writing, the two most significant fires have burned a combined acreage of roughly 35,000, with containment for the Palisades blaze at 8% and containment for the Eaton Fire at 3%.