During Kincade fire, a Cesar Chavez-inspired radio station kept farmworkers informed

SANTA ROSA, Calif. - The farmworkers who called Francisco Pardo the morning after the Kincade fire began were more anxious than usual. Some hadn't slept in case they needed to evacuate. Others said they could not prepare meals because they had lost power.

From the studio at KBBF-FM, a multilingual public affairs radio station in Santa Rosa, Pardo was trying to keep listeners informed of the fire's danger. As it had done during the devastating 2017 Tubbs fire, the all-volunteer staff had begun a marathon of live coverage.

But taking these calls was important and went to the heart of the station's original mission. It was formed in the early 1970s during the Chicano movement by students who wanted to empower Northern California farmworkers and