STRICTLY Relative to "WILDFIRE". Are you ready, are your "PRE-prepared". Is there one more thing you could do...???

[Sourdough]

This winter finds me in an uncomfortable (and scary) temporary living situation. Not only am I not ready, but I am also not sure what I can do, about that.

I have established more and more caches. I currently/temporally live in a building where I am the only person who speaks/enunciates cleanly the English language. I suspect in a building fire that could be a problem. Just another reason to be happy with achieving 78 y/o.

So......are you ready. They are saying in the California fire 300,000 will need to evacuate. Where to that many humans go, on short notice..??

 

[Hardcalibres]

My rural farm house/homestead is prepared to be either defended by me......or to survive if I am away when the fire occurs.

That has taken a lot of time/effort/money and fundamental selection of the specific property.

The head of our local volunteer fire fighting group described our place as the most defensible property in our region.

As fire severity increases, the fire fighters apply triage to what they defend. They will only defend what they know can be defended and what wont get them killed when the fire comes through.

In a big fire in our area, they may well be parked on the front lawn refilling their trucks from our surrounding dams and tanks.

We store more than four times as much water as the suburb of Pacific Palisades had to fight their fire.

 

[LadyLocust]

This winter finds me in an uncomfortable (and scary) temporary living situation. Not only am I not ready, but I am also not sure what I can do, about that.

I have established more and more caches. I currently/temporally live in a building where I am the only person who speaks/enunciates cleanly the English language. I suspect in a building fire that could be a problem. Just another reason to be happy with achieving 78 y/o.

So......are you ready. They are saying in the California fire 300,000 will need to evacuate. Where to that many humans go, on short notice..??

What language do they speak? You might learn a couple ket phrases.
Otherwise nothing I can mention I’m sure you’ve not already thought of.

 

[LadyLocust]

PS : I don’t like that they are calling it a wildfire (potentially arson). To me it’s a fire. A wildfire is in the wilderness.

 

[Neb]

This winter finds me in an uncomfortable (and scary) temporary living situation. Not only am I not ready, but I am also not sure what I can do, about that.

I have established more and more caches. I currently/temporally live in a building where I am the only person who speaks/enunciates cleanly the English language. I suspect in a building fire that could be a problem. Just another reason to be happy with achieving 78 y/o.

So......are you ready. They are saying in the California fire 300,000 will need to evacuate. Where to that many humans go, on short notice..??

Excellent question.

I am woefully unprepared because wild fire threat is very low in SW PA. I can recall only one wild fire in the last 40 or so years. Most years I don't have to water my gardens.

But question of 300,000...

0.1% of the US is a lot. Dispersing them throughout the country is not a good solution. Seems they would have to be hosted locally.

I've said before

CA is a problem of it's own making.

Ben

 

[Sourdough]

The Government here (Exactly HERE) has been going full wide-ass open, 100% PLUS grind all dead-standing trees into topsoil. The area has epidemic Spruce Bark Beetle destruction. Local governments and individual owners apply for grants to down the trees, and the companies doing this are impressive to watch.

 

[Supervisor42]

My rural farm house/homestead is prepared to be either defended by me......or to survive if I am away when the fire occurs.
That has taken a lot of time/effort/money and fundamental selection of the specific property.
The head of our local volunteer fire fighting group described our place as the most defensible property in our region.
As fire severity increases, the fire fighters apply triage to what they defend. They will only defend what they know can be defended and what wont get them killed when the fire comes through.

In a big fire in our area, they may well be parked on the front lawn refilling their trucks from our surrounding dams and tanks.

We store more than four times as much water as the suburb of Pacific Palisades had to fight their fire.

Fortunately for us, a wildfire is one of the few things we don't have to worry about.
The hurricanes take down most of the trees here, so there is nothing within a 30-mile radius of me that you could call 'a forest'.
Don't be us.

 

[LadyLocust]

And they *chose* not to fill the water reservoirs.

 

[Sourdough]

What language do they speak? You might learn a couple ket phrases.
Otherwise nothing I can mention I’m sure you’ve not already thought of.

Well, they understand English, (they understand me) and they speak English, but not as I understand what they are saying. I have been living along on a mountain, with very-very-very little human contact. The problem is me. I have just never been around this situation. They are very nice people, the work (11) Eleven hours everyday. They make good money. They have worked "EVERYDAY" straight for over one year. They never get a day off from work.

 

[Sourdough]

CA is a problem of it's own making.

California and Illinois know the Federal Government will save them.
All things considered Alaska might be considered the wealthiest state.

 

[Sourdough]

The Government here (Exactly HERE) has been going full wide-ass open, 100% PLUS grind all dead-standing trees into topsoil. The area has epidemic Spruce Bark Beetle destruction. Local governments and individual owners apply for grants to down the trees, and the companies doing this are impressive to watch.

It is beyond words to watch these companies work. They clear and grind up "Everyday" that is bewildering. I can't imagine that more professional "EQUIPMENT" exists for the work that they do.

They leave the few healthy trees alone. But they have incredible equipment that uses hydraulic cutting tool to fell these trees, and another machine comes and grinds the laid-down tree into wood chips. Another machine grinds the wood chips into and mixes with the top 10" of topsoil. It is scary fast, and after a few rains, walking there is like a park. Zero underbrush, zero grass or small plant vegetation. But come next spring it will be a carpet of new green life.

A special NOTE: I am a guy that owns (16) Sixteen Chainsaws. So, if I am ultra impressed at their system, I am not a virgin to making trees dead.

 

[DrHenley]

How do I prepare?Prescribed burn to get rid of the fuel for wildfires when conditions are right. Already did half the place last spring, waiting for right conditions to do the rest.

 

[Amish Heart]

We were wide eyed when the 100 acres plus of wheat across the road from us was lit up. All we could do was leave at that point. The neighbors were very quick with help, and we're all really aware. Tractors came out to move dirt, we established a "safe place" to be (at a different neighbors), and a few brought their trailers with very large water haulers. It made a big difference until the FD could get there. There is a hydrant with a hose attached at the very end of our road, people use for refilling. But geesh, all our farmhouses are 100 yrs old or so, and would go up quickly.

 

[M0del_31]

I've been assembling the components to build a fire skid of sorts with a harbor freight 150 gpm 2" trash pump (40psi), 275 gallon ibc tote, hose/reels...etc. Pulling from the pool, a two inch hose and fire nozzle throws water over the top of my house. I could probably hit a couple neighbor's houses with it. Planning to use a FEL to lift and fit the hole thing in the bed of a 3/4 ton, then fill it with water if it needs to travel but otherwise it will sit next to the pool under a tarp.

 

[Hardcalibres]

How do I prepare?Prescribed burn to get rid of the fuel for wildfires when conditions are right. Already did half the place last spring, waiting for right conditions to do the rest.

Remove the trees way back away from your house/sheds.

Establish a lawn (and keep it green) or bare ground in that buffer zone.

Controlled burns remove underbrush and ground fuel......but the fastest moving, most dangerous/energetic fires are crown fires.....up in the canopy of the trees.

Radiant heat decreases in proportion with the cube of distance. That means every time you double the distance to the fuel, you decrease radiant heat by 87.5%

Saving your house from a grass fire is very achievable.

Saving your house from a crown fire that gets close in (say less than 50 yards) is virtually impossible.

 

[Hardcalibres]

We were wide eyed when the 100 acres plus of wheat across the road from us was lit up. All we could do was leave at that point. The neighbors were very quick with help, and we're all really aware. Tractors came out to move dirt, we established a "safe place" to be (at a different neighbors), and a few brought their trailers with very large water haulers. It made a big difference until the FD could get there. There is a hydrant with a hose attached at the very end of our road, people use for refilling. But geesh, all our farmhouses are 100 yrs old or so, and would go up quickly.

At least with farm houses 100 years old, you can say "so far, so good".

In the movie "Magnificent Seven" Steve McQueen tells a story

 

[Amish Heart]

Ha. I remember that movie.

Filled IBC totes on a trailer is a great thing to have ready, Model 31. The arsonist started another wheat field a few miles down the road (on his way to the hwy for his escape) and it was quickly put out by the water in a tote. Thankful someone spotted that one.

 

[rice paddy daddy]

When the wildfire went down the other side of the dirt road we live on we decided to completely clear the trees from about two acres around the house.
We were able to sell the trees (pine) for enough money to get the stumps removed.

Wildfire is normal here. But this area is not controlled by tree hugging hippie eco freaks like Kalifornia. The forestry service understands the importance of not only controlled burning, but also wildfires.

 

[montanabill]

Years ago when we lived in the woods a fire started in a wheat field being harvested. The farmer tried to put it out but it moved onto forest service land and the forest service wouldn't let him continue to put it out....
The fire burned onto one of ted turners properties and he didn't want to put it out.
The wind shifted and the fire raced 10 miles and burned thu our 20 acres of juniper and some old pine on the side of a hill.
Burned a large firewood pile and all the ramshackle outbuildings. The fire at this poit was crowning in very dry pine trees and the wind was carrying embers over a half mile.
I had moved some stuff to a safer storage unit away from the property and we grabbed the cat and left with planes doing slurry drops and flames everywhere..
The fire burned 74,000 acres and only impacted 11 land owners. Montana has a lot of public land.
When we got to go back in after the fire stopped due to a change in weather the little cabin was still there surrounded by smoking holes where the roots of trees were still burning . White ash everywhere.
Amazingly the power had stayed on as the power pole was only half burned thru, this let our pump continue to run which kept the sprinkler going on the center of the roof of my semi round 600 sq ft cabin. I had constructed it without eaves so the water ran down the roof and down the sides and it didn't burn.
The 20 acres was charred and stunk and all the garden and fruit trees gone so we walked away and started over.

 

[Haertig]

The hurricanes take down most of the trees here, so there is nothing within a 30-mile radius of me that you could call 'a forest'.

You don't need a forest. The Marshall fire we had here in Colorado - we could see the flames from out back door - destroyed a ton of homes and structures. Including homes of several of our friends. It was a grass fire, driven by high winds and low humidity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Fire

So......are you ready.

Our plan is not to battle a wildfire whipping through our neighborhood and the houses around us. That would be futile and dangerous. We will simply leave. And then rebuild. Or start over at a new location.

 

[Mountain trapper]

Years ago when I was logging the state took a percentage of the value of each load of logs sold. They would return that money IF you cleaned up the logging slash to their specifications when your done logging, which included piling the tops and limbs and burning. Then they changed the rules to just leave the slash spread out on the ground. Don't know their reasoning, but I kept piling and burning anyway.
On our current property I have an ongoing thinning project. Every year we take an area and thin the trees and clear out the brush and burn it. We rake up the pine needles around the house too and burn them. Most of the property I graze down quite a bit to help reduce fire danger. A couple years a go I signed an agreement with the Forest Service allowing them to dip water out of our pond with helicopters for area fires. They agreed to replace the water and fish. Two years ago the FS did a controlled burn around 3 sides of our property. Of course the fire got away in several places and burned in to our property. Overall I was very pleased with them and the burn.

 

[Pearl]

NO, we are in a woodsy area! It would be nearly impossible to get out of try to save the place!!

 

[RJ2019]

Im prepared to a point. I keep the vegetation and flammable stuff away from my house, and I have a backup plan in case of fire. I have the things I need ready in just a couple places and from a previous fire have learned what is and is not important to take. I'm not overly attached to my "stuff"...I've seriously seen people evacuating from a fire loading trailers full of furniture and other meaningless items. My house is not hardened against fire, nor am I attached to it so I'm prepared to walk away from it and start again somewhere else. Practicing non-attachment to material items is one of the bigger preps you can make. Carrying cash is probably the single biggest thing you can do.

 

[angie_nrs]

We've discussed this before in another thread. There are some things I would do and some things that I have done to prevent losing the house to fire. We are in a wooded area so it is a concern.

A while back we decided to put on a metal roof. It was partly so we wouldn't ever have to worry about the roof since our other one was fine (and the metal roof went right over it), but it also provided visual improvement and protection against really nasty weather and FIRE. We even got a discount from our homeowners insurance. It's not a fire protection guarantee, but it would help.

I always keep a hose near outdoor and indoor garage faucets! In the winter they are hanging on an inside wall. Metal type of hoses are best for this purpose. I usually keep two 50' hoses that can connect with a good nozzle hanging on a wall.

If a small fire ever starts in a garage or someplace outdoors, someone could have easy access to water and can aim water either at the fire, or wet down the area (or home) to prevent a fire from taking hold. Always have extra hoses available for that cheap insuance. You don't want to run around wondering where someone put the garden hose if a fire happens. If a non-family member doesn't know where you put your hose, they won't be able to assist in putting out a fire.

We try to keep the dry brush and underwood cleared visually from the house. Not only does it provide a nicer appearance, it eliminates some of the fuel a fire would need. I have my own chainsaws....both battery operated (with lots of backup milwaukee batteries) and gas powered Stihls. My back doesn't allow me to do as much as I used to, but I do what I can.

I have the camper ready to roll even in the winter with some clothes and other essential packed in there. I'd have to grab some food and other stuff, but it would be ready to roll since I wouldn't want to get too far from home without a place to stay if we HAD to evacuate. The propane tanks are kept filled at the end of the season. Plus, it would give us more room to throw valuables into if we had to go. Hopefully we would get some notice before we'd have to leave, giving us a chance to load up. If not, we'd still have a place to stay if we had to roll out ASAP.

 

[DrHenley]

..but the fastest moving, most dangerous/energetic fires are crown fires.....up in the canopy of the trees.
...
Saving your house from a crown fire that gets close in (say less than 50 yards) is virtually impossible.

Do fires normally start in the crowns of trees?

 

[sonya123]

I thought we were buying property in a wet area when we moved here, but lately it has been really exeptionally dry in the summer, so if there is a wildfire we are just screwed. We live on a mountain in the woods. The trees around the house protect it from the crazy wind we get in winter, so I really don't want to get rid of all of them either. But most likely a fire would happen in summer, not winter.
I would try to get as much stuff as possible, animals first, down the road across the river

 

[Cabin Fever]

There is no prep for us. We live in the middle of a large forested area (100s of square miles). With the exception of our basement concrete walls, our cabin home is 100% wood, inside and out (no sheetrock, no carpet, no metal roof, etc). So, our prep is (1) having a good home insurance policy by a reputable company and (2) having two pickups that we can load with valuables and keepsakes when we evacuate. If our place is threatened by a forest fire, we're out of here and headed for the nearest Holiday Inn.

 

[Weedygarden]

This winter finds me in an uncomfortable (and scary) temporary living situation. Not only am I not ready, but I am also not sure what I can do, about that.

I have established more and more caches. I currently/temporally live in a building where I am the only person who speaks/enunciates cleanly the English language. I suspect in a building fire that could be a problem. Just another reason to be happy with achieving 78 y/o.

So......are you ready. They are saying in the California fire 300,000 will need to evacuate. Where to that many humans go, on short notice..??

I think that few people are prepared for wild fires. I do know of two homes in the mountains of Colorado where single homes survived, due to being prepared for it.

One home was built of strictly fire proof materials. The other homeowner had set up a system to release a foam covering of his home at a strategic time.

There was an older couple in the mountains of Colorado who had a bunker. They knew a fire was coming and they went to their bunker. They were later found deceased. A fire requires oxygen, as does our survival. The fire that came by their bunker had to have consumed all of the oxygen.

I have heard of two different homes that are really way, way out of code for wiring. Whatever was code in the 1920's does not even begin to cover all of the electrical needs of today. One of these homes is not far from me. Another neighbor has tried to convince the homeowner to get the situation rectified, but this person had decided way before she built up much retirement potential and has others providing for her financially, so she is not in a position to get her electrical up to code. Her electrical situation could start a fire that could start a wild fire in our area. Although my electrical box was replaced a few decades ago, it could be upgraded again.

We've discussed this before in another thread. There are some things I would do and some things that I have done to prevent losing the house to fire. We are in a wooded area so it is a concern.

A while back we decided to put on a metal roof. It was partly so we wouldn't ever have to worry about the roof since our other one was fine (and the metal roof went right over it), but it also provided visual improvement and protection against really nasty weather and FIRE. We even got a discount from our homeowners insurance. It's not a fire protection guarantee, but it would help.

I always keep a hose near outdoor and indoor garage faucets! In the winter they are hanging on an inside wall. Metal type of hoses are best for this purpose. I usually keep two 50' hoses that can connect with a good nozzle hanging on a wall.

If a small fire ever starts in a garage or someplace outdoors, someone could have easy access to water and can aim water either at the fire, or wet down the area (or home) to prevent a fire from taking hold. Always have extra hoses available for that cheap insuance. You don't want to run around wondering where someone put the garden hose if a fire happens. If a non-family member doesn't know where you put your hose, they won't be able to assist in putting out a fire.

We try to keep the dry brush and underwood cleared visually from the house. Not only does it provide a nicer appearance, it eliminates some of the fuel a fire would need. I have my own chainsaws....both battery operated (with lots of backup milwaukee batteries) and gas powered Stihls. My back doesn't allow me to do as much as I used to, but I do what I can.

I have the camper ready to roll even in the winter with some clothes and other essential packed in there. I'd have to grab some food and other stuff, but it would be ready to roll since I wouldn't want to get too far from home without a place to stay if we HAD to evacuate. The propane tanks are kept filled at the end of the season. Plus, it would give us more room to throw valuables into if we had to go. Hopefully we would get some notice before we'd have to leave, giving us a chance to load up. If not, we'd still have a place to stay if we had to roll out ASAP.

Fire extinguishers are an important investment as well.

 

[Mountain trapper]

We built our house in a stand of timber near the top of a small valley. Primarily so it would be protected from the wind and be cooler in summer. Three years ago a fire started 30 miles south of here and burned to within a half mile of our western property line. Our weak point for protecting our home and outbuildings from fire is water. Our well is a quarter mile from the house. We don't get great water pressure up here but I do have hoses that will reach most of our buildings, plus fire extinguishers inside every building. The prevailing winds come from the west, so we keep the west side of our property grazed down pretty low, which will help with grass fires.

 

[LadyLocust]

Im prepared to a point. I keep the vegetation and flammable stuff away from my house, and I have a backup plan in case of fire. I have the things I need ready in just a couple places and from a previous fire have learned what is and is not important to take. I'm not overly attached to my "stuff"...I've seriously seen people evacuating from a fire loading trailers full of furniture and other meaningless items. My house is not hardened against fire, nor am I attached to it so I'm prepared to walk away from it and start again somewhere else. Practicing non-attachment to material items is one of the bigger preps you can make. Carrying cash is probably the single biggest thing you can do.

There are two sides to this. Having just been through it and thinking and knowing it’s really just “stuff” but when it happens and you lose something that was given to you as a bit of a legacy from someone who has passed on, all I can say is, “easier said than done.”