Abstract
For the authors of this article, the Camp Fire was an experience never to be forgotten. Not only would their school crisis intervention efforts be among the most significant of their careers, but in different ways they were also crisis victims. Whether it was air that made them so sick that their schools were canceled for weeks; having colleagues, friends, and relatives lose their homes; or seeing entire school communities damaged to the point that the ability to recover was seriously questioned, each of them was personally affected by this experience. With the approach of the 1-year anniversary of this natural disaster, with this article they hope to share some of the lessons they learned from the first 3 weeks of the response. In doing so, it is their hope that they will, in some small measure, build something productive from the fire's incredible destruction. To place our work in context, they begin with an incident overview and discussion of unique crisis response challenges. Next, they focus on the general school crisis response, including the specific efforts of the National Association of School Psychologists' (NASP) national crisis support team. Finally, they conclude with a discussion of lessons learned.