For a chance at a youthful complexion, you could slap rendered cow fat on your face, rub snail slime into your wrinkles, or get a salmon sperm facial right after a microneedling treatment. 

You read that right: These are things actual people are doing. Influencers, celebrities, and everyday consumers alike are touting the youthful glow such animal-derived products bring to their complexion.

For some consumers, opting for a product like beef tallow is an intentional decision to move away from the conventional skincare products typically sold at the drug store or Sephora. It’s understandable — every day, it seems, we’re told of new horror about how forever chemicals and microplastics are embedded into our environment and bodies. From food to skincare, US consumers have shown they want to distance themselves from potentially unhealthy or toxic ingredients. They’re looking for products that market themselves as clean, concerned that the ingredients in typical treatments are worsening issues like acne or are harmful for long-term health. Beef tallow is a type of MAHA-ism for beauty (and for food, too). 

The cosmetics industry sold over $400 billion worth of products in 2023, with skincare making up the sector’s largest category. It’s easy to get sucked into the rabbit hole that is becoming beautiful, especially in a world that is all about maximizing self-improvement. Skincare, in particular, is a personal issue for me — I’ve had eczema my whole life, and when I’m having a particularly bad flare-up, I feel insecure and desperate for a cure. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to feel good about yourself.

But there is an ethical problem if feeling good about yourself comes at the expense of animals — and that’s increasingly the case with these new clean beauty trends.  

The cosmetics sector has long — and, at times, quietly — depended on animals, much like the agriculture and fashion industries. Way before folks were spending $44 on beef tallow whipped with chamomile, everyday products like hair-strengthening shampoos featured keratin (usually derived from animal fur or hooves), lipstick pigments depended on carmine (ground-up bugs), and anti-aging moisturizers incorporated collagen (a structural protein found in animal hides and fish skin). That’s not including animal testing to ensure the safety of ingredients in cosmetics. 

While some consumers are intentionally seeking out animal-derived products and treatments, plenty of consumers aren’t necessarily concerned about what’s in their cosmetics, or are perhaps unaware of how a certain science-y sounding ingredient is sourced. Instead, they orient more toward what’s trendy or seemingly effective. 

Whatever the reason may be for using animal-based skincare and beauty products, we’re still ignoring a larger problem. Just because something comes from an animal, it doesn’t mean the process of getting into our hands is “clean” or “natural.” And even if some of these animal-derived products have beneficial properties for our skin, it still comes at a cost bigger than we realize. 

In reality, many of these beauty trends that claim to be against the “toxic” nature of mainstream wellness or those touting the benefits of animal-based products are upholding the very industries that are harming our planet. And in turn, it’s harming ourselves — a steep cost for beauty.

“Clean” living, dirty consequences

When I saw beef tallow hawked on social media, one question immediately came to mind: How were these businesses sourcing their animal ingredients? 

That led me to look up “beef tallow for skin” on Amazon, where there were pages upon pages of results. They all used similar language to describe their product: “ancestral,” “natural,” “organic.” Most of the sellers advertised themselves as small businesses and included images of cows on their product packaging, to further hammer home that what you’re purchasing differs from big, mainstream beauty. 

Beef tallow for skin is made by taking the fat of a cow and rendering it until it’s ready to be whipped into a cream-like moisturizer. So where are these cows to begin with? Of the nine products I looked at with 300 reviews or more on Amazon, only one named a small farm in Virginia as a supplier. The others simply listed that their tallow came from “grass-fed” cows. 

While the term “grass-fed” may suggest to some consumers the pinnacle of animal welfare and sustainability, the reality is far more complicated. For starters, virtually all cows spend most of their lives on pasture eating grass; it’s only until their final months that they’re moved into feedlots, which are pastureless, outdoor dirt pens — in essence, factory farms for cattle. (Per USDA guidelines, “grass-fed” cows are never supposed to enter feedlots and remain on pasture during their final months, though the agency doesn’t go on to ranches to verify them and there’s a long history of meat companies misleading the public on these types of claims.)  

Feedlots are worse for animal welfare, but “grass-fed” beef has its own sustainability problems, so there are tradeoffs between the two systems. But ultimately, sustainability and animal welfare claims on animal products are poorly regulated, and it’s even harder to trace/verify these claims once they wind up on a skincare product. 

“Terms like sustainability, farm-raised, so forth, are pretty broad,” said Glynn Tonsor, an agricultural economist and assistant professor at Kansas State University. “There’s not an internationally accepted standard that you got to cross-check on.” So language like “grass-fed” doesn’t help determine the source of the beef or how high-quality it is — but businesses use them anyway in marketing their products because they’re aware these terms appeal to consumers and elicit a sense of naturalness and quality.  

One of the beef tallow moisturizers on Amazon with over 700 reviews had no website to find any other information — just an Amazon storefront with other beef tallow beauty products. It also advertised its beef tallow as “organic,” a claim that should make you raise your eyebrow because the US Department of Agriculture does have regulations for food products labeled as organic. While the USDA doesn’t oversee cosmetics, beauty products with agricultural ingredients can be organic-certified by the USDA if they meet the standards. 

“There’s hardly any organic beef production,” says Richard Sexton, a University of California Davis agricultural economist, when I asked him about beef by-product sourcing. “I don’t really know how they can say that the by-products are organic.”

Tonsor added another way to think about vague claims on products: “If somebody tries to sell you gluten-free water, don’t pay a premium for it.” 

And while “grass-fed” can give off the vibe of a more green, natural, or sustainable process, it’s actually worse for the climate, says Matthew Hayek, an assistant professor of environmental studies at New York University. “Grass-fed trades off not eating corn and soy for living longer, requiring more land, and producing more greenhouse gasses,” the 2024 Future Perfect 50 honoree told me. Over a third of methane emissions from human activity comes from our agricultural practices, with cattle being the main driver. (Cattle burps are rich in methane).  

Big environmental impacts like global greenhouse gas emissions can feel abstract, but for the people living near big cattle operations, the externalities from these facilities are anything but. Hundreds to thousands of beef cattle can be found on a singular feedlot, and they generate huge amounts of manure. In the US, factory farms — including those raising cows, pigs, and chickens —produce nearly a trillion pounds of waste a year, which ends up in giant piles, massive lagoons, or sprayed onto neighboring fields as fertilizer. People who live within miles of factory farms report terrible stenches that keep them indoors and force them to have their windows closed.

When animal waste breaks down, it forms pollutants like ammonia gas. Ammonia emits a deeply unpleasant smell, and exposure can lead to symptoms like headaches, irritated eyes, skin, and lungs. One study found that there are 12,700 premature deaths annually attributed to increased fine particulate matter pollution (largely driven by ammonia) from the production of animal-based food. And 4,000 of those deaths are specifically attributed to beef cattle. Communities near factory farms have also reported animal waste polluting their waterways with nitrates. 

So while “grass-fed” beef tallow for skin has been popularized by content creators on platforms like TikTok for it being “natural” and “clean” because it’s animal-derived, it’s likely that it’s helping bolster an industry that’s polluting local communities and our planet. 

Tallow isn’t the only cattle by-product used in skincare that has serious environmental consequences. A 2023 collaborative investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, The Guardian, Center for Climate Crime Analysis, ITV, and O Joio e O Trigo found that collagen operations in Brazil drove the deforestation of at least 1,000 sq. mi of tropical forest as well as violence against Indigenous peoples occupying that land. Brazil is the world’s largest exporter of beef, and as demand for collagen booms, more land will be needed to raise cattle. The cattle industry has driven 80 percent of Amazon forest loss in Brazil, according to the investigation. 

Even calling beef tallow or collagen “by-products” undermines how useful they can be as profit-makers to the meat industry, even if they generate far less money than the parts we eat. “If something fetches a price, then it’s not a by-product,” Hayek said. “It’s another revenue generating production stream. It’s a co-product.” 

The strangeness of snail slime and salmon sperm

Sourcing for even more niche animal-based products, like snail mucin and salmon sperm skincare treatments, is not as easy to track as beef. Both were popularized in South Korea, a leader in the cosmetics and skincare industry. 

Snail mucin has made a recent comeback in the US with popular products like COSRX’s snail essence formula, which has nearly 4,000 reviews on Ulta, a cosmetics chain. An article from Racked reported that the process for sourcing and extracting snail mucin is intentionally mysterious because beauty companies don’t want their competition to know the technology they use. 

A 2022 Business Insider video showed just that, however, uncovering how one snail production hub in Italy extracted their mucin. After receiving the snails from local snail farms, the small creatures were placed inside machines where they were sprayed with an acidic solution that caused the snails to excrete their slime. The institution said it was a cruelty-free process, but after repeating this process a few times, the snails were euthanized and were used for cooking and other cosmetic products. 

Salmon sperm facials are much newer to the scene than snail mucin. In South Korea, the process involves injecting polydeoxyribonucleotide (PDRN), which are fragments of DNA from salmon sperm, all over the face. In the US, salmon DNA injections have not been approved by the FDA, so cosmetic spas often apply PDRN topically after microneedling in order for the product to be absorbed.  

Jennifer Aniston, who has received a salmon sperm facial, had the same question as I did when I first heard about these treatments: “How do you get salmon’s sperm?” she asked the Wall Street Journal in 2023. I called up eight cosmetic spas to ask where they sourced their salmon DNA, and scoured several others’ websites for any details. While there appears to be at least a few PDRN products being used by professionals, the one that came up the most was Rejuran. Their website for cosmetic spas says they source PDRN from wild salmon in Korea, and their retail US website says they seek ways to reduce their environmental impact across their operations.  

I emailed Rejuran for more details about where the salmon comes from for their PDRN-based products, as well as if their environmental efforts extend to how they source their salmon. They have not yet responded.

Most of the fish we use today comes from aquaculture production, which farms fish and other aquatic life, while the rest is wild caught in fisheries. While fish has less of an environmental impact than other animals commonly used for consumption (like cows), fisheries still come with their fair share of sustainability issues, like damaging seabeds, unintentionally catching other marine animals, and overfishing. 

The individualism of “clean” beauty

If you take an extra minute or two to think about it, the strangeness of using animals for something as superficial as perfect skin starts to set in. Couple that with obscure sourcing practices, harmful environmental impacts, and questionable animal welfare practices, and the cost of it all starts to add up. 

But when you feel the pressure to look a certain way, it’s easy to gloss over how the sausage — or in some cases, serum — gets made.

The desire to have a healthy body, to have access to healthy food and water, and for our environment to be free from harmful toxins is a right we all deserve. This newest iteration of skincare trends advertised as clean, natural, and animal-derived, however, ultimately does nothing to make that goal a reality.

There’s no official definition of clean beauty, but the general idea refers to skincare and cosmetics that exclude ingredients that could be harmful to our bodies, like parabens. Much of this parallels the rise of returning to “clean living” and “ancestral diets.” People are cutting out dyes, preservatives, and ultra-processed foods in favor of eating high protein, animal-based diets and using only “non-toxic” products. It’s a lifestyle that’s been around for a while but it’s making a strong comeback in tandem with the Make American Healthy Again movement. 

As it tends to be with wellness and beauty, this revitalized uptick in animal-based beauty is deeply individualistic. Here’s how you can look younger longer, here’s how you can be more beautiful, here’s how you can remove toxins from your body. The prioritization of personal validation over communal health encourages people to trust surface-level statements about what’s “clean” and what’s not at face value. 

It’s true that nearly everything humans do is extractive one way or another, but that’s not a reason to avoid acknowledging our participation in that cost. If people want to get real about healthier communities and a cleaner world, it can’t be done alone by individually buying your way toward there. It’s much harder and more complicated than that, and I know that the average person doesn’t have the resources to seriously address these issues.

Stronger regulations for both the food and beauty industry could take the responsibility off of consumers and instead put it on companies. In 2022, the US passed the Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act, which intended to do this very thing by giving the Food and Drug Administration regulatory power over cosmetics. But according to Allure, advocates feared that implementation would be delayed after Donald Trump won the 2024 election due to potential FDA cuts. Just last month, hundreds of employees at federal health agencies, including the FDA, were fired.

In the meantime, maybe a small step in the right direction is to look away from our reflection in the mirror, pay more attention to what we’re consuming, and to dig a little deeper if the cost — supporting industries that are contributing to local air and water pollution, climate change, and questionable animal welfare practices — is worth the price.

The Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles have destroyed over 10,000 structures — homes, businesses, and everything inside from bathroom cleaner to electrical wiring. 

Naturally, people in the Los Angeles area are reaching for their phones to see what the Air Quality Index (AQI) says about the air around them. But to the surprise of most people, the AQI has been good or moderate across Los Angeles, even in neighborhoods that have been most impacted by the fires. In Pasadena, the AQI went from a high 293 (a rating of “very unhealthy”) on January 11 to a low of 30 (a “good” rating) the next day. How can that be?

Throughout the week, concerned residents attended calls run by leading organizations like the Coalition for Clean Air and local NPR station KCRW asking more questions, like: When entire neighborhoods full of buildings and cars burn, what’s released into the air? How far do they have to be from the fires to be safe from these pollutants? And how do they protect themselves from bad air?

Air pollution is a silent killer that no one is immune to. Every year, 7 million people all across the globe die prematurely from the effects of air pollution. In the United States, exposure to air pollution is associated with 100,000 to 200,000 deaths annually. Long-term exposure can lead to a range of health effects in almost every organ system of the body, says Ed Avol, professor of clinical medicine at the University of Southern California’s (USC) Keck School of Medicine.

Wildfires play natural, important roles in their ecosystems, particularly in western states like California. But human-caused climate change is causing these blazes to become more severe and more frequent. This means that more humans will be exposed to bad air.

But just how bad is that air? Unfortunately the answer isn’t as straightforward as you might think. But here’s what we do and don’t know about air quality, and how to think about lowering the risk to air pollution.

What the AQI does (and doesn’t) tell us about the air

The Environmental Protection Agency developed the AQI to give the public a tool to understand how good or bad the air is throughout the day. Using data collected by 5,000 air monitors placed all across the country, it tracks the levels of specific pollutants in the air, assigns it a number, and that number corresponds with a color-coded category to help people understand the quality of the air and what activities are safe to do in the outdoors. 

You can find the latest AQI on the EPA’s AirNow website or through its AirNow app. They also offer a fire and smoke map, which shows the AQI and what neighborhoods are under smoke outlooks.

As former Vox reporter Rebecca Leber explained:

That haze you can see and smell on a particularly polluted day is made of ozone and fine particulate matter.

Fine particulate matter, known as PM2.5 (the 2.5 microns describes its size, 30 times smaller than the width of a human hair) can embed in the cells of the lung and the bloodstream, aggravating inflammation, asthma, heart disease, and mental health. And ozone causes similar damage. In the stratosphere, ozone blocks ultraviolet radiation from the sun, but at ground level it can cause shortness of breath and damage to respiratory tissue.

Both pollutants can affect the entire body in all stages of life. 

But there are some important drawbacks to the AQI. It tries to distill a lot of information into one datapoint, and it depends on air monitors often placed near cities and not close to industrial polluters. Since air pollution can vary widely even over short distances — think a busy highway versus a quiet, tree-lined road — the air could be worse if you’re near a pollution source.

The AQI is calculated based upon five criteria pollutants regulated by the Clean Air Act: fine particulate matter known as PM2.5, ozone, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide. When you look at the AQI on your phone or on a website, the number it shows you represents the primary pollutant. The pollutants that drive  the AQI number tend to be PM2.5 and ozone.

In the case of the California wildfires, the pollution source is exposing millions of people in the greater Los Angeles area to smoke. And that smoke contains some pollutants that are outside of the scope of the AQI. “It’s correct that when all these things are burning, there’s a lot more toxic compounds in the air,” says Rima Habre, a professor of population and public health sciences at USC’s Keck School of Medicine. 

As fires burn down houses and buildings, the blazes can release certain volatile organic compounds, toxic metals, and toxic gases into our air — all of which the AQI does not account for. That’s causing people to worry about the air, and whether their health will be impacted in the long-term as it was for first responders in the 9/11 attacks. 

Ash from the wildfires, which can irritate your skin or lungs, falls out of the air and settles onto the ground and therefore is not accounted for in the AQI, Habre says. So the AQI could say that the air is good, even if there’s visible ash on your house or street.

There are ways to measure the potential harmful pollutants and chemicals in the air that are outside of the AQI — that’s how we know they exist in the first place, Avol says. “But we don’t routinely measure all of these things, all the time, everywhere because that would be unfathomably expensive,” he added.

Is the AQI still useful in the context of wildfires? Yes and no. It’s still an important resource, but it simply wasn’t designed for situations like these unprecedented mega wildfires burning down thousands of buildings and structures. But there are ways to help make choices around safety and risk, even when the AQI can’t tell us the full picture.

How to think about risk and best protect yourself

When I attended air quality information webinars this week, I heard Los Angeles residents ask a lot of the same questions: How far do they have to be from the wildfires to be safe from bad air? How can they keep their families safe?

The uncomfortable truth is that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer to these questions. You could live several miles away from the fires, but if the wind is moving in the direction of your home, you could be at risk for exposure to bad air. But both Avol and Habre say you can analyze your risk, and make decisions on how to lower your risk from exposure to bad air.

First, take into account your own personal health and the health of your family. Does anyone have respiratory conditions, like asthma? Is anyone immunocompromised? If so, these are extra reasons to stay cautious of the air, Habre says.

You can then check the AQI and observe your environment. If the AQI says the air is good, but it smells like smoke or there’s a lot of ash present, or if the wind is blowing in your direction while fire is present, take precautions: Limit your time outside, wear a well-fitting N95 mask, which can help filter out PM2.5. And, when you do have to go outside, make sure your shoes and clothes aren’t tracking in ash when entering your home. It’s also a good idea to run air purifiers indoors while keeping windows and doors shut.

Understandably, it’s a difficult and scary time for Los Angeles residents. On top of losing entire homes and neighborhoods, the wildfires have forced us to face an uncomfortable truth, which is that life is not risk-free and that there is no way to completely protect ourselves from the consequences of disasters like these. But it doesn’t mean we’re totally powerless in lowering our risk to short and long-term health consequences. “There’s a lot of agency here,” Habre says. Making informed choices, even imperfect ones, may be the best way to move through this uncertain period.

We’re making this story accessible to all readers as a public service. At Vox, our mission is to help everyone access essential information that empowers them. Support our journalism by becoming a member today.

The Los Angeles wildfires, in the course of a week, killed at least 25 people, burned more than 30,000 acres, and displaced thousands of people and wildlife from their homes. It’s a difficult time for Los Angeles residents — and yet, even in the face of crisis, people are mobilizing to support those in need, especially in neighborhoods that have faced the brunt of destruction like the Pacific Palisades, Pasadena, and Altadena.

Across social media platforms, many people are sharing lists of organizations to donate to, links to GoFundMe campaigns, and places to volunteer. But in that deeply human, well-meaning intention to immediately help others comes a very real set of issues. In the aftermath of natural disasters, as Vox’s Jess Craig reported in Asheville, North Carolina, last year, resources are stretched thin, safety is a major concern, and the situation is developing and changing each day. 

The nature of crises are also ripe moments for misinformation to spread. Pictures showing the Hollywood sign on fire (it never was) and rumors that the state turned away fire trucks from Oregon (proven to be not true) widely circulated. The inherent chaos of disasters also makes it easy for benevolent people to share outdated information, such as posts about donation drives that are no longer going on, that spread unintentionally. Now is the time to critically access information online before sharing to others. 

But if sifting through dozens and dozens of campaigns feels overwhelming, don’t let that discourage you. If you want to help people affected by the wildfires in a meaningful way, take a minute to evaluate what aligns with your values — it can help you discern how you want to give. For instance, giving cash can be really effective in the short term, especially in low-income communities that could benefit from more support.

Here’s how you can navigate deciding whether to donate your money, items, or time, and what organizations you could give your resources to.

Deciding how and where to give

It’s easy to feel powerless when a crisis strikes and with so many calls to action in place. To figure out how you can personally help, think about if you’re trying to help immediately, in the long run, or (ideally) both.

For immediate relief, especially if you’re not local to Los Angeles, consider giving cash. Cash transfers can be simple but very effective. It allows survivors to respond to their exact needs, which they know best, in real time. 

Giving money with no strings attached may help reduce poverty — though most studies on the effectiveness of cash transfers take place in low-income countries. But one study of cash giving after 2017 hurricanes in Texas and Puerto Rico showed a strong impact on stress reduction and avoiding debt for recipients from the cash transfers, and that nearly 90 percent of recipients expected to benefit from the transfers in a year’s time. 

A little can go a long way.

“If you’ve got even just a few extra dollars here and there, don’t underestimate the good they can do,” Vox’s Sigal Samuel wrote in her advice column, answering a reader’s question about how to think about charitable giving when they feel like they don’t have a lot of money in the first place. “For instance, Miriam’s Kitchen, a DC-based nonprofit with a mission to end chronic homelessness, can serve a full meal to a person experiencing homelessness for just $1.25.”

Cash is great, but it’s not the only way to give, especially if you’re thinking of how to support people in the long term. If you’re local to Los Angeles, volunteering can get you embedded within groups that are supporting wildfire survivors. Building strong relationships with your fellow community members can ease the sense of chaos and powerlessness, and can empower you and your neighbors to combine your collective resources into action. 

For anyone volunteering in a place that’s been hit by disaster, stay patient if you’re not immediately being brought in to help. Many of these groups have processes to get people onboarded, and are currently receiving an influx of volunteers. It may take some time before they can get to your volunteer application, but don’t let that discourage you — volunteers are going to be needed even after the wildfires have been contained and when the initial bursts of donations die down. 

One way you can approach narrowing down where to give is by looking for well-established groups with clear community connections. Most of us aren’t experts on what to do during a crisis, but there are organizations — as big as national nonprofits and as local as community groups — that are well-equipped to transfer money, items, and other resources onto people in need. When deciding where to donate, look to groups with evidence of effectively providing relief, strong connections to the community, and sticking around in the long run. 

Here are four organizations working on wildfire relief efforts with this approach in mind:

• California Community Foundation for general support. 
• Altadena Girls is distributing clothes, hygiene supplies, and beauty products to help young girls affected by the fires feel normal again. 
• Project Angel Food delivers meals to people with serious illnesses. 
• World Central Kitchen is currently distributing hot meals to first responders and affected families at over 20 distribution sites across Los Angeles.

National nonprofits like GiveDirectly, which focuses on transferring cash directly to the world’s poorest people, also have the technological tools and connections to help. They’re running a fundraising campaign for low-income survivors of the Los Angeles wildfires, and have received over $478,000 in donations out of their $1 million goal. By partnering with food stamps management app Propel to target people in need as well as groups on the grounds, GiveDirectly is planning to give around $3,000 to $4,000 per family, said Tyler Hall, senior director of communications for GiveDirectly. 

GiveDirectly doesn’t require recipients to craft a sympathetic narrative to receive money or to have a preexisting network of people to receive donations from, as inherently required by fundraising platforms. “It’s a way to get cash aid to those people who might not have packaged their story for one of those crowdsourcing websites,” Hall told Vox. 

That’s where GoFundMe comes in. The crowdsourcing platform has become a major player for fundraising immediate needs in the US, especially in regards to disaster relief. GoFundMe has a page dedicated to wildfire survivors’ campaigns and a campaign run by its nonprofit branch that’s raised over $3.6 million. 

But there are a few issues with individual crowdsourcing. One study found that wealthier disaster survivors are more likely to receive help than lower-income survivors on GoFundMe. There’s also individual concerns that fundraisers either aren’t a direct line of support for a victim or could end up being a grift (GoFundMe does offer full refunds in the case of fraudulent campaigns, which the company says is rare).

And there’s a decent chance that GoFundMes can disqualify survivors from receiving assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Legally, FEMA cannot duplicate benefits a person receives from another source. “If you receive money from a GoFundMe page for a specific disaster-related expense — such as home repairs, funeral expenses, or other emergency needs — you may not be able to receive FEMA aid for the same expense,” reads the FEMA website.  

These rules can put wildfire survivors in a tough situation between waiting for federal assistance or quickly receiving community funds. According to FEMA, applicants should receive notification within 10 days of their eligibility for assistance (which may not necessarily mean they’ll receive their money within 10 days, as FEMA relief recipients have posted about on Reddit). If you’ve lost your home and belongings, 10 days is a long time to go without immediate monetary relief. 

You can also look out for organizations that align with your values. For instance, if you care about animals, look to the animal resource nonprofit Pasadena Humane. Over the course of a week, the organization taken in over 650 animals, said Kevin McManus, the group’s public relations and communications manager — a number that they typically get in a two-month period.

But McManus added that thanks to the support of the community and deep connections with groups like San Diego Humane, Best Friends LA, the ASPCA, the Red Cross, and others, they’ve been able to get animals the care they need. McManus said that monetary donations and signing up to foster are the best ways people can help right now.

Another local organization that has quickly mobilized the community is the Pasadena Community Job Center. Run by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), the center’s usual operations is connecting day laborers with prospective employers. The organization has been leading debris cleanups and handing out essential supplies to displaced residents, many of which have not lost just their homes but their jobs, said NDLON communications director Palmira Figueroa. The immigrant worker community quickly mobilized into action to help their neighbors after this intense loss.

“They talked about what they could do during this emergency,” Figueroa told Vox. That led to the creation of volunteer fire brigades to clean up debris and run donation drives. Figueroa said thousands of volunteers have helped so far, but there’s still a lot of work ahead. They’re still seeking volunteers, monetary donations, and in-kind donations.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution for supporting wildfire victims, and that disaster relief efforts will evolve and change in the coming weeks. As my colleague Kelsey Piper reported, disaster relief comes with logistical challenges. Certain roads and areas can be hard to access, charities and community groups can be overwhelmed with donations, and it’s easy for disorganization to rise in the chaos. 

Wildfires in particular are long lasting and ever changing. It can take days or weeks to contain the fires, and they spread easily. So as the situation changes, as they often do during disasters, so do the needs. One day, a group may need cash and not physical donations; the next day, they may be putting out a call for supplies like toiletries or baby formula. 

The Los Angeles wildfires will have long-term consequences on affected residents for months and years to come, long after this acute moment of need — and they’ll need support even when the news cycle has moved onto the next disaster. With that in mind, a good way to help in the long run is to follow trusted organizations on their social media platforms to stay up to date with their needs. A bonus step is to make monthly donations, so that groups can keep working on recovery efforts long after the fires have been contained. 

Local mutual aid groups also have community connections and their finger on the pulse of what’s most needed, particularly during a crisis. These spaces can also be good for people looking for a long-term way to sustain community and help with recovery after the wildfires are over, whether it be volunteering in-person or donating monthly. Mutual Aid LA Network offers a list of mutual aid projects across Los Angeles — and its Instagram is an easy place to receive updates of volunteer and donation needs especially as the situation continues to evolve.

“We were thinking day by day by day, we were thinking hour by hour. Now it’s shifted to day by day,” McManus said. “Now we’re starting to look like, ‘Okay, what’s next week gonna look like? What’s the week after that gonna look like?’”