A good friend of mine forwarded me an e-mail he had received about a 1st Hand Bug Out Account from the Wild Fires in Colorado. I think we can all take a lesson away from this. Below is the e-mail:
We received confirmation last night that our house is still standing (great news!) but won’t know if we suffered any smoke or heat damage until we are allowed to access to the property. The only thing we have been told is that it will be awhile. They are still concerned about hot spots. We were also thinking that maybe they were stalling us in preparation for Obama’s visit to ground zero today. The long and short of it is we have been glued to the 24 hour local news broadcasts and are still shell-shocked.
In short, this is how it all came down:
Even though the fire had been burning for days, we believed – along with everyone else – that it was under control. But you can not believe how quickly that all changed as a wall of fire descended on us. One estimate we’ve heard is that it was traveling miles in minutes. As we scrambled to grab what we could, a friend who works for the volunteer fire department called us to warn us that the fire had reached a road ¼ mile from us. Then the phone rang to tell us to evacuate. We never received a pre-evacuation notice even though we were monitoring the fire on TV. I literally glanced out our living room window and saw a raging fire pouring down on us in the near distance. Next we started hearing explosions and stepped outside to find our house totally consumed in smoke. I grabbed a wrench, ran to the gas meter on the side of the house, shut it down, unhooked the propane tank from the grill on the deck and moved it away from the house. Went back in the house, grabbed our suitcase and some other personal possessions, locked everything down and split.
It felt like a scene from a movie as we drove away from our neighborhood, so surreal with flying ash and sirens screaming and everyone in their cars with their faces covered (including the cops & firemen) with masks or bandanas. Pure chaos… it looked like a war zone.
Has anyone else heard a first hand account of Bugging Out from the Wildfires out West?
Remember, it’s not IF but WHEN,
Creek
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Not sure what I would have done if I were in your situation but I think this was a good time to take a few days off work and bug out early just in case.
Honestly Creek, the reason I started pursuing survival, and bug out gear was a very similar event. The Old Fire of 2003. At the time, I lived in sunny Lake Arrowhead Ca, a resort destination for all the vacationing southern California residents. Paradise.
Until that morning in October… It started as just another small fire, entertainment for the locals, just something to look down on from our safe mountain home. At the time, I lived across the street from a summer camp which was being used for a conference for the weekend. It only took a few hours for the distant smoke, far down the mountain, to envelope my neighborhood. Local police patrolled the streets trying to get the word out to evacuate, but highway 18, the main road off the mountain had already been closed. The fire raged, burning toward the local high school, unfortunately built on the rim of the world, just off of highway 18. My family and I were totally unprepared for an event of this magnitude, no place to go, no time to bring the things most important to us, and over 200 people we needed to help escape the impending fire storm.
At the time my father worked for the camp, and with a cool head executed his evacuation plan. In a caravan of over fifty cars just after dark, we made our way slowly down a winding dirt road off the back side of the mountain range. I remember vividly seeing the ridge over my home completely ablaze, extending for miles down into the valley, and beyond toward Wrightwood, and Los Angeles. I even remember seeing transformers exploding. Creating bright flashes of white against the crimson orange of this new night sky. Honestly a memory I won't soon forget.
In conclusion, I wish I had been prepared for that disaster, sitting comfortable in my little mountain community, I never thought something like that could happen to me. Six people lost their lives in that fire, 80,000 people evacuated, and almost 1000 houses lost. One of the arsonist who started the fire was shot and killed, the other charged with 5 counts of murder.
Since this event, I have made an effort to be better prepared. From having a complete Bug out Bag, and Survival Shotgun, to practicing survival skills, and awareness on a daily basis. Thank you Creek for your exceptional website, and having the energy and passion to continue to share your knowledge. You make a difference.
-Joshua L. Olson
Honestly Creek, the reason I started pursuing survival, and bug out gear was a very similar event. The Old Fire of 2003. At the time, I lived in sunny Lake Arrowhead Ca, a resort destination for all the vacationing southern California residents. Paradise.
Until that morning in October… It started as just another small fire, entertainment for the locals, just something to look down on from our safe mountain home. At the time, I lived across the street from a summer camp which was being used for a conference for the weekend. It only took a few hours for the distant smoke, far down the mountain, to envelope my neighborhood. Local police patrolled the streets trying to get the word out to evacuate, but highway 18, the main road off the mountain had already been closed. The fire raged, burning toward the local high school, unfortunately built on the rim of the world, just off of highway 18. My family and I were totally unprepared for an event of this magnitude, no place to go, no time to bring the things most important to us, and over 200 people we needed to help escape the impending fire storm.
At the time my father worked for the camp, and with a cool head executed his evacuation plan. In a caravan of over fifty cars just after dark, we made our way slowly down a winding dirt road off the back side of the mountain range. I remember vividly seeing the ridge over my home completely ablaze, extending for miles down into the valley, and beyond toward Wrightwood, and Los Angeles. I even remember seeing transformers exploding. Creating bright flashes of white against the crimson orange of this new night sky. Honestly a memory I won’t soon forget.
In conclusion, I wish I had been prepared for that disaster, sitting comfortable in my little mountain community, I never thought something like that could happen to me. Six people lost their lives in that fire, 80,000 people evacuated, and almost 1000 houses lost. One of the arsonist who started the fire was shot and killed, the other charged with 5 counts of murder.
Since this event, I have made an effort to be better prepared. From having a complete Bug out Bag, and Survival Shotgun, to practicing survival skills, and awareness on a daily basis. Thank you Creek for your exceptional website, and having the energy and passion to continue to share your knowledge. You make a difference.
-Joshua L. Olson
Wow – this is one of the best 1st hand accounts of a Bug Out I have ever heard. These are real disasters that happen to real people on a regular basis. Thanks, Josh, for sharing. Creek