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MusiCares, the Recording Academy’s charity-focused partner organization, has directed over $15 million in relief over the past year to those affected by the wildfires that spread through southern California in early 2025, it announced Wednesday. The fires began one year ago, on Jan. 7, 2025, and continued through Jan. 31. In total, the fires destroyed 16,512 buildings and left more than 525,000 acres burned, according to statistics compiled by Cal Fire.
MusiCares-affiliated events and the Grammy Awards raised a combined $24 million in total for fire relief, the organizations announced in February of last year.
MusiCares says it has assisted more than 3,200 music professionals and provided over 5,200 services since the disaster including health and wellness services like dental, vision and physical therapy along with direct financial assistance and resources to help those affected navigate insurance claims and aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. For more information, see the organization’s website.
Its continuing work in the region includes helping with rent and insurance costs, care for pets, providing substance abuse and therapy resources and connecting people to pro-bono studio opportunities.
On Jan. 9, 2025, two days after the fires broke out, the Recording Academy — which founded MusiCares in 1989 — and MusiCares announced an initial $1 million in aid directed towards those affected and working in music. On Jan. 15 they jointly announced the launch of MusiCares Fire Relief, which included $1,500 per household in financial assistance and $500 grocery cards to meet the short-term needs of those affected. The organization says $7 million was spent in the immediate aftermath of the fires.
“The music community is being so severely impacted but we will come together as an industry to support one another,” Recording Academy and MusiCares CEO Harvey Mason, Jr. said last year when announcing the organizations’ initial aid package.
Over the past year MusiCares directed portions of the $15 million in funding to several partner organizations including Direct Relief, the California Community Foundation, the Pasadena Community Foundation as well as MusiCares Fire Relief.
At a recent event providing health services to those affected, MusiCares says many participants shared stories of evacuating with only a few minutes notice, forcing some to leave behind their means of livelihood – instruments and studios, some of which the organization has helped to replace.
“Recovery does not happen on a fixed schedule,” said Theresa Wolters, who was officially named executive director of MusiCares last August. “We continue to hear from people who have been in survival mode for nearly a year, rebuilding homes, juggling displacement, trying to keep working, and only now able to focus on their own health and stability. That delayed need is a very real part of disaster recovery.”
English (US) ·