Tag: wildland-firefighting

ARTfarm Fire Recovery Info, Saturday 30 min. Ministand… 4/5/2025, 11am – 11:30am

Farmer Lindsey Simmonds was one of many volunteers who arrived with family, firefighting equipment, and muscle to help us extinguish smoldering fencing posts and plant material.

Saturday mid-morning quick mini farmstand 11am – 11:30am, first come first served.

Huge thanks to all the volunteers and farm family who came out to help us on Sunday afternoon during the brush fire and into the dark hours, to extinguish most of the smoldering fence posts, tree stumps and embers. No words to express our deep thanks.

See the top post on our site for ways to donate to support our recovery from this massive fire that burned more than half the farm and destroyed a lot of infrastructure.

Rain showers have been helpful but crops still need to be watered. A number of our mainline water transport lines got melted in the fire. Farmer Luca is working to replace those lines to resume watering crops on the outer edges of production area.

Volunteering details

We will be meeting at the farm entrance at 4pm on Saturday and Sunday to clear fence lines of burnt treated lumber.  Please be on time. Non-smokers/non-tobacco users only please.

Response has been big for this weekend. There will be more volunteering efforts after this weekend, and if turnout is overwhelming for this weekend’s cleanup we may ask a few folks to sit this one out. We may put an online volunteer signup system in place.

We want to impress upon those thinking about helping, that the fire was only recently fully extinguished, and air quality is still poor in these pasture areas. Windy conditions continue to lift ash and blow it around. Masks are absolutely suggested. Folks with respiratory issues should not come. Also know that there will be lots of walking. If you have mobility issues, consider not coming to this session. We will have other volunteer days coming up as well.

Our main focus this weekend is going to be clearing fence lines of burned treated lumber (telephone poles), and collecting burnt plastic and other waste materials. Possibly some documentation and assessment tasks as well. Protect your skin.

Lastly, if you are a tobacco smoker or user, we really would prefer if you would not help. It is still tomato season and there’s still a chance that our crops will get tobacco mosaic virus from having you out here handling tools, supplies and gates. 

Volunteers, please bring:

  • Gloves, long sleeves
  • Dust mask or fabric mask
  • Good sturdy work shoes
  • Drinking water and snacks
  • Loppers for pruning dead branches and vines off fencing
  • Wire cutters for cutting burnt areas off electric netting
  • A wheelbarrow if you have one

MiniARTfarmstand for Saturday:

  • Sweet salad mix
  • Heirloom tomatoes 
  • Slicer tomatoes 
  • Cherry tomatoes 
  • Tomato seconds
  • Baby bok Choy 
  • Bunched arugula 
  • Scallions 
  • Baby turmeric 
  • Hot green and red peppers 
  • Basil
  • Cilantro
  • Parsley
  • Dill
  • Kaffir leaves

First come first served. Grateful for your support of our family farm. See you Saturday 11am – 11:30am

❤️‍🩹 How to Help: Brushfire Recovery

We are still assessing the damage and our comprehensive fundraising needs, and will share progress and goals as we go, but for now we have some info on donating in several ways plus some volunteering opportunities.

Our east pond water catchment shed held all our fencing replacement supplies and had two water tanks for livestock watering and irrigating nearby fruit trees established about five years ago.

1️⃣ You can make a donation directly to ARTfarm. It is not tax deductible. Do this at the farmstand with the usual payment methods.

2️⃣ You can donate through the federally recognized non-profit 501(c)3 organization VIGFC (Virgin Islands Good Food Coalition)’s Emergency Response Fund tagged “Fire” and your donation will be tax deductible.

• You can make a donation online with a credit card through VI Good Food’s PayPal @goodfoodvi specifying “Emergency Support – Drought/Fire” in the pulldown menu. You’ll get a tax receipt. Please ALWAYS double check that the link is legitimate before making payments online!! Scams are out there to take advantage of disasters.

• You can also write a tax-deductible check to “Virgin Islands Good Food Coalition” with “Emergency Fund – Fire” in the memo, and snail mail to: Virgin Islands Good Food Coalition,‬‭ Inc.‬, PO Box 2902, Kingshill, VI 00851‬

VI Good Food is a non-profit farm advocacy organization helping us and other local farmers with disaster relief and other programs.

3️⃣ For volunteering info, check out our most recent farmstand post below for details. We’ll mostly plan these events (cleanups, assessments, rebuilding efforts) on weekends when people have more available time to help. We may post some online signups in the future.

~ Farmer Christina