Ready or Not - GO!
“All the leaves are brown and the sky is gray; I went for a walk…,” the Mama’s & Papa’s crooned in 1965. “I’d be safe and warm,” they continued, “If I was in LA. California dreamin’…” California’s dreams are in flames.
“All the leaves are brown and the sky is gray; I went for a walk…,” the Mama’s & Papa’s crooned in 1965. “I’d be safe and warm,” they continued, “If I was in LA. California dreamin’…” California’s dreams are in flames.
The skies over Sacramento are gray - smokey gray - and sometimes smell of smoke. The Ferguson Fire burns in Yosemite NP, causing the largest closure of the park in decades. Starting July 13th, the cause of the fire remains unknown. Its ash and soot drifted one-hundred miles north to Lake Tahoe.
Immediately, persons with sensitive airways began to feel its effects in Sacramento, 100 miles west of Tahoe. Patients flowed into our clinic and stuffed our email inboxes with requests for inhalers.
On July 23rd, a trailer on Hwy 299 got a flat. As the driver pulled over, sparks from the wheel rim against roadway ignited what is now the sixth-most destructive wildfire in state history = the Carr Fire near Redding. Redding is approximately 160 miles north of Sacramento.
Firenado - hot air rose so quickly, it produced tornados of 160 mph, uprooting and tossing burning trees, spreading fire that jumped the Sacramento River. Fire moved into the city of Redding, causing immediate evacuations.
In fifteen seconds, this link shows the day by day, explosive growth or the Carr Fire.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/04/us/carr-fire-week-wrap/index.html
Two fires near Clear Lake, an area 90 miles west of Sacramento and plagued by fire in recent years, began Friday 7/27, turning off our sun.
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| NASA infra-red pic Oakland Fire |
In retrospect, the harbinger, the proverbial canary in the coal mine, may have been the Oakland Hills fire of 1991. The Oakland firestorm was a large suburban, wildland–urban interface conflagration that occurred on the hillsides of northern Oakland, CA, and southeastern Berkeley over the weekend of October 19–20, 1991. The fire ultimately killed 25 people and injured 150 others. The 1,520 acres destroyed included 2,843 single-family dwellings and 437 apartment and condominium units. The economic loss was estimated at $1.5 billion (1991 USD).
I remember the day distinctly. We returned home from a full workday to multiple messages from my mother-in-law, each sounding more urgent than the last. Sarah lived in the Berkeley Hills with two schnauzers and no car. Outrunning the erratic, all-consuming fire proved impossible and for some, fatal.
We drove through the Oakland Hills two weeks later. It looked like a war zone. Excepting an occasional house or chimney, everything was reduced to rubble, literally leveled. Not one bird sang, not one leaf rustled in the cool, bay breeze stirring ash and soot into the sky. Long before our drought problems began, post-mortems pointed to fuel on the ground, fuel in the hills, and eucalyptus trees that burn hot.
Southern California has long been plagued with fires, most notoriously in the canyons of northern LA where steep terrain make firefighting impossible. But the fires of northern California - burning cities - that’s new.
The Santa Rosa fire of 2017 - now that hit close to home in many ways. Santa Rosa is a beautiful community north of San Francisco. Seventeen small fires started, nearly simultaneously, during a single evening in October 2017. I thought arson but Cal Fire now attributes it to ferocious, hot, dry winds that snapped overhead, electric lines and fanned flames.
Dubbed the Tubbs Fire, it was the most destructive wildfire in California history, burning parts of Napa, Sonoma, and Lake counties. At one point, eight contiguous, northern California counties were fighting fires simultaneously in what was called the “Northern California firestorm.” The fire incinerated more than 5,643 structures, including more than 2,800 homes in the city of Santa Rosa, with damages estimated at $1.2 billion. Forty-four people died.
Kaiser Permanente has a hospital in Santa Rosa. I know people who work there. Both Kaiser and Sutter evacuated their hospitals as flames licked at their campuses. Employees evacuated patients in their personal autos as firefighting resources were stretched beyond capacity. With a singular focus on safety and with no hope of fire containment, people were rooted from their beds by sirens and first-responders pounding on their doors.
The podcast Reveal did a fascinating narrative on the many failures that hampered firefighters, fueled flames, and kept people from evacuating. Entitled, More to the Story: Wildfires, it aired on May 9, 2018. Check it out.
Santa Rosa was my wake-up call. If Santa Rosa could burn, Folsom can too. And now the Carr fire in Redding, where people have died because the erratic nature of the fire left them no time to evacuate. My eyes are fully open and I am in action. I can no longer think it won’t happen here. It IS happening here, in a neighborhood near me.
Below, I’ve outlined my preparations for immediate evacuation. I live in an urban area, I can expect to evacuate to an urban area except during earthquake, when all services could be disrupted. Each area has its common threat, consider that you should prepare for the most common threats in your area: tornado, hurricane, fire, flood, earthquake, landslide and debris flow, etc. My disaster du jour will likely be fire and/or earthquake.
First, let me say that every year I reinforce and widen the defensible space (fire barrier) around my home. I am very proactive in the greenbelt behind me, moving fuel away from trees, laying down a thick layer of pre-emergent each winter to prevent vegetation from growing to my property line. That being said, should the oak trees in my backyard ignite - my house is toast.
1) Place a pair of boots under your head of bed. You won’t get far barefoot or in slippers.
2) Have valuables in one location for scoop and run.
3) Baconz Go-Bag: rolling duffle bag
3 days of quick dry clothing. (recommend camping/hiking clothes)
warm clothing layer
rain jacket/pants
N95 mask/respirator
medications
flash drive w/medical, financial info.
headlamp (w/new batteries)
flashlight (w/new batteries)
phone/iPad charger
3-liter hydration bladder
water filter
water bottles X2
hand sanitizer
sleeping bag
2 micro-fiber towels
First-Aid kit
toiletries
toiletries
Duct tape
Ramen, bowl, chopsticks
Foodbars
Cat Go-Bag: a large, rolling duffle bag contains:
small litter box, 2 small bags of litter, and scoop.
2 small bags of food.
2 cat carriers stocked with blanket, toys, water/food bowls, harness, leash.
Pet medication and records.
Have a plan for your pets. We will make better choices in-a-pinch if we have a plan. I heard an interview this week by a woman in Redding with four dogs. She refused to evacuate because, lacking a plan, she did not want to abandon her dogs. Such a decision puts many lives in danger - including first responders. Have a plan!
If I can evacuate in BAM (Baconz Adventure Mobile) I’ll have 20 gallons of potable water, solar power, and a propane stove.
People mourn the loss of family photos more than anything. Trusting souls store this stuff in the cloud. Untrusting souls (me) put them on an external hard-drive. I keep one in the office and one at home - and swap them monthly.
Be not lulled into complacency. Ignore not the signs: gray, sunless skies and the scent of smoke. Climate change is upon us! Live as though the day were here. ~ Nietzsche
RESOURCES:
The Emergency Financial First Aid Kit (EFFAK) can help you identify the records you will want to keep safe. This document is available at www.ready.gov/financialpreparedness.
For more information about how to prepare, visit www.ready.gov or call 1.800.BE.READY.
- Fire Adapted Community: www. readapted.org
- Forests and Rangelands, Community Wild re Protection Plans:
www.forestsandrangelands.gov/communities/cwpp.shtml
- Home Builders’ Guide to Construction in Wild re Zones,
Technical Fact Sheet Series (FEMA P-737, September 2008): www.fema.gov/media-library/assets/documents/15962?id=3646
- Inter-Agency Wild re information: http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/
- International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC); Ready, Set, Go! Program:
www.wildland rersg.org
- National Fire Protection Association (NFPA): www.nfpa.org
- NFPA’s Firewise Communities Program: www. rewise.org
- National Interagency Fire Center: www.nifc.gov
- National Weather Service Fire Weather: www.srh.noaa.gov/ridge2/ re/
- Ready: www.Ready.gov/wild res
- Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Disaster-Specific Resources: Annotated Bibliography: www.samhsa.gov/dtac/dbhis/dbhis_speci c_bib.asp#disaster
- U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Forest Service: www.fs.fed.us/ re/
- U.S. Fire Administration (USFA): www.usfa.fema.gov
Footnotes:
1 Captain Donald R. Parker (January 1992). Oakland Office of Fire Services,
2 "Top 20 Most Destructive California Wildfires". CAL FIRE. Retrieved October 20, 2017.
http://www.fire.ca.gov/communications/downloads/fact_sheets/Top20_Destruction.pdf
