Wildfires have repeatedly disrupted the U.S. food supply during major disasters, especially when evacuations cut off homes, grocery stores, and electricity. In California’s 2018 Camp Fire, the deadliest wildfire in state history, evacuees in Butte County and nearby areas survived on shelter meals, donated food, packaged snacks, and shelf-stable basics documented by the American Red Cross, local officials, and news reports from November 2018.
Emergency meals at shelters and aid sites
After the Camp Fire started on Nov. 8, 2018, the American Red Cross and local partners opened shelters for thousands of evacuees in places including Chico and Oroville. The Red Cross said in its response updates that it and partners served tens of thousands of meals and snacks during the first days of the disaster, with food distributed at shelters, evacuation centers, and mobile feeding sites.
Those meals were built for speed and safety, not variety. Reporting from the Los Angeles Times, The Sacramento Bee, and local outlets in November 2018 described evacuees receiving sandwiches, coffee, bottled water, soup, chili, fruit, granola bars, and other ready-to-eat items. In many shelters, volunteers also handed out boxed meals because kitchen access was limited and power outages affected normal cooking.
What people in Butte County actually relied on
In Butte County, confirmed food options changed hour by hour as Highway 99 routes, store inventories, and shelter capacity shifted during the fire’s first week. Officials and aid groups publicly confirmed meals at formal shelters, but they did not release a complete countywide list of every food item given out in Paradise, Chico, Oroville, and smaller evacuation sites.
What is clear from local reporting is that evacuees often depended on simple staples. The Chico Enterprise-Record and television coverage from Northern California showed donation tables stocked with peanut butter, bread, bananas, apples, instant noodles, canned soup, sports drinks, and baby formula. Churches and community groups in Chico also served hot breakfasts and dinners, while fast-food operators and local restaurants donated trays of food when they could reopen.
Why shelf-stable food became the default
The reason was basic logistics. The Camp Fire destroyed much of Paradise, killed 85 people according to California authorities, and forced rapid evacuations that left many residents without refrigerators, stoves, or medication. In that setting, emergency managers and relief agencies favored food that could be stored safely, moved quickly, and eaten with little or no preparation.
That same pattern has appeared in other major U.S. wildfires, including Maui’s 2023 fire response and earlier California disasters, where relief groups again relied on bottled water, sandwiches, snacks, canned goods, and mass-prepared hot meals. For residents, that meant survival food was usually familiar American convenience food rather than specialty rations, and Red Cross guidance has long emphasized ready-to-eat, nonperishable items during wildfire evacuations.
