‘We do what the Red Cross won’t’: a day in the life of a wildfire Relief Angel

A team of volunteers have been soliciting donations and distributing them to wildfire victims in the Pacific north-west

Valerie O'Dai takes a drag from her cigarette at a donation site in Bly, Oregon, black sunglasses on, ash smeared across her face. She hasn't showered or seen her husband and children in almost 48 hours. Firefighters may be gaining ground against the Bootleg fire, the largest wildfire currently burning in the US, but the urgency of her work has just begun.

She leans out the side door of her lifted Chevy truck, emblazoned with Relief Angels" in blue letters, and waits for a phone call, an update on a big donation. Her crisis response team delivers aid to victims of natural disaster in the rural Pacific north-west, to the people O'Dai says are often the most desperate and hardest to reach.