Businesses chip in to help.

Dave Power knew he’d been lucky.

The general manager of the Four Points by Sheraton hotel in downtown Halifax lives in the area where wildfires destroyed dozens of homes on Sunday and displaced hundreds of people.

“We were on the brink, but for me, the wind was blowing in the right direction,” said Power, who also knew he had the ability to help.

“We just reached out to people in my community to say if you need a bed, we have one,” said Power, whose wife also works in the hotel industry. “We put up between 15 and 20 people, some for free, some at a rate that’s just enough to cover cleaning.”

Four Points is working on offering a steep discount to people to stay at the property for as long as they need to.

Across the harbour, the Mic Mac Mall is offering space free of charge for RV or trailer owners whose vacation home is for now their only home.

“We did have a few stay with us overnight, and we’re happy to offer the space that we have to the community, to help in any way we can at a time like this. It’s something that’s easy for us to do, offer up the space, when help is needed,” said mall spokeswoman Lindsay Cochrane. “We do ask people to check in with security upon arrival, so we can manage the way we’ve got them parked. We are asking people to use the overflow lot, so that’s closest to the 118, by the highway.”

The allotted space is not near any electrical outlets, but there are public washrooms and phone charging stations in the mall.

Realizing that many people now need a place to keep things they were able to save, U-haul is offering 30 days of free self-storage and U-box container usage to residents affected by the wildfires.

“Right now, we’re just trying to get the offer out there so that everybody is aware of it. We just released it (Sunday) night…i’ve heard of some people who are interested but I haven’t confirmed how many people have taken us up on it yet,” said Devin Mitchell, U-haul president for Atlantic Canada. “We have quite a bit of capacity. At the Halifax location (in Bayers Lake) we have about 150 vacant rooms that we can bring to bear. We also have our U-box program to bring self-storage on site so that people can store their things close to where they’re affected.”

Later in the day, Mitchell said three people had so far taken advantage of the free storage offer, which also extends to U-haul locations on Windmill Road and in the Atlantic Acres industrial park.

Mitchell said it’s an offer they make after any natural disaster.

“A lot of it would be household items and valuables, anything they could get their hands on before they had to get out. That’s generally what we run into, especially when it comes to fires,” he said. “I have already heard there’s quite a demand for trucks, so people can get as many things moved as they can. Also, a lot of emergency services will rent our vehicles.”

The Terra Café in downtown Halifax is collecting donated items to be transported to Tantallon, including Ziploc bags, granola bars, fruit, packaged snacks and bottled water.

The café’s owner lives in the area affected by the fire, and donated items will be picked up for transport daily at 5 p.m.

As people and businesses try to figure out how to help, the Halifax Chamber of Commerce says there isn’t yet a clear leader on who is managing support. The chamber says it will provide information to its members when it’s available.

In the meantime, a message from the chamber suggests asking hotels if they have an evacuation rate. It also says a commitment to provide funds to support evacuees and residents of the affected areas from the Telus Atlantic Community Board will be forwarded to an agency that will assist with support.

The Insurance Bureau of Canada says most home and business insurance policies cover fire damage.

The IBC’S site says if residents have to leave their homes because of a mandatory evacuation order issued by civil authorities, “most homeowner’s and tenant’s insurance policies will provide coverage for reasonable additional living expenses for a specified period of time.”

The site also says to keep receipts and notes that coverage for additional living expenses starts from the date of evacuation, not the date a claim is made.