As of Sunday, more than 1.6 million acres across 13 states in the west have been burning in wildfires. The worst of them are located in California and Colorado and those areas are where AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon are providing specific responses to their customers.
AT&T will not charge overages to postpaid and prepaid subscribers in affected ZIP codes for talk, text, and data from August 22 to 28. Customers won't need to do anything for this.
Wireline customers are urged to call (877) 241-1787 to set up remote call forwarding and voicemail with fees waived for a limited time — more details available here.
Here are the Colorado ZIP codes eligible:
- 80480
- 80482
- 80512
- 80545
- 81601
- 81630
- 81631
- 81637
And here are the California ZIP codes:
- 94508
- 94550
- 94558
- 94562
- 94567
- 94573
- 94574
- 94576
- 94599
- 95005
- 95006
- 95007
- 95017
- 95018
- 95037
- 95041
- 95060
- 95064
- 95135
- 95138
- 95140
- 95148
- 95419
- 95430
- 95436
- 95444
- 95446
- 95448
- 95462
- 95471
- 95486
- 95492
- 95607
- 95653
- 95694
T-Mobile is offering no direct service aid to its own-brand, Metro by T-Mobile, and Sprint customers because, it explains, the majority of its customers have unlimited talk and text standard. Postpaid customers also get unlimited data. It is encouraging its employees to donate to the American Red Cross with a two-to-one match program that could net $150,000 total.
Verizon is providing all customers in the affected areas with unlimited talk, text, and data between August 22 and 28. The company is also publicizing mobile response stations featuring hotspots, charges, and other support services in the burn zones.
In Colorado, users can get expanded services in Eagle, Garfield, and Mesa counties. Over in California, it's Alameda, Lake, Merced, Napa, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, San Joaquin, Solano, Sonoma, Stainslaus, and Yolo counties. See a full list of ZIP codes here.