Are you prepared?

High winds which lasted for several days blew over power lines near Boulder yesterday - which started the fire which was uncontrollable in such high winds.

As I watched the billowing clouds of smoke from my home office and thought about what to do, I realized that a small shift in wind would have enveloped our neighborhood in dense smoke impossible to breathe and the winds were so strong that firefighters could not do much - neither planes nor helicopters could fly.

So I started packing, but very inefficiently! I wandered around looking at things for ideas about what to take.
At first, I could only see billowing clouds of smoke from my office window but then started to see large flames. Our kids were very frightened and on the verge of hysterical. We kept telling them it was nothing to worry about but it had no effect - they could see the flames and smoke themselves!

We spent a few hours packing computers, documents, clothing, food, toys etc. but in this environment it was very hard to think straight about what to bring with us. Had I been given just 10 minutes notice, I would have been at a complete loss for what to take or where to find whatever I decided upon. A little anxiety and pressure changes everything.

The fire started a couple miles away from our house but after a couple of hours reached the mountains right in front of our house. in the end, we didn't have to decide whether to evacuate or not because there was a mandatory evacuation order. It became a moot point anyway because the girls were too frightened to stay, period.

So we evacuated, but as we were driving away we saw that the orange glow from the fire was actually very close to our neighborhood. We turned around and went back to gather more clothing. During the night, the wind dropped to 10 to 20 mph and switched to a more favorable direction. Firefighters controlled the fire and our neighborhood emerged unscathed.

Even though this is very unlikely to happen again the next 50 years, I will prepare an evacuation list. I keep a list of things to bring on vacation and business travel, so why not an evacuation list? This experience just reminds me how ineffective I am when completely unprepared. Whether it's a phone call, a meeting, an interview, a vacation or an emergency, preparation makes all the difference!

The funny thing is, the preparation never really takes much effort or time. For me anyway, all the battle is in remembering to prepare.

What about you?

Tags: preparation, wildfire

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Comment by Nate on January 12, 2009 at 3:14pm: key is to really prepare the exterior of your house, and surroundings, on an ongoing basis. structure shrubs and trees, grass, so as the fire approaches house from most likely direction (esp from downhill!) it will run into thinner fuel. trim all low tree branches and underlying shrubs so fire won't reach up to ignite the trees from the ground, and thin/space/trim trees so they will not ignite one to the next. make certain the rooftop and exterior are fire-retardant materials. make sure there is nothing flammable (woodpiles, etc) touching the house at all! dose house, and yard, with as much water as possible in the hours b4 fire, using a sprinkler for max light dispersal, and use soapy water to the degree you'd rather kill your plants than burn your house (how hard a question is that..?) usually in a completely burned neighborhood there will be a few houses left unscathed b/c of this sort of preparation... this picture is totally common, and it is NOT "lucky": http://tiny.pl/vxss why not let it be yours? glad it missed you!

Comment by Eric Shannon on January 9, 2009 at 4:41pm: thanks guys! the thing about hurricanes is you have a lot more time to prepare and I think it's safer to assume you would be able to salvage some things from your house. This event caught us completely off guard because we live more or less in the city albeit on the very edge...

Comment by Brigitte Visscher on January 9, 2009 at 11:08am: Wow, what an experience for any adult and for the kids!.... it must have been soooooo frightening.... glad you guys are OK now. Food for thought and for action about preparedness, thanks for sharing and my best to you and the girls! :) take care.

Comment by Otavio Fonseca on January 9, 2009 at 8:43am: Glad everybody is all right! You can probably borrow a few pages from the "Hurricane Preparedness Handbook" from your FL days. I am still working on getting all my important documents scanned into a jump-drive, or uploaded somewhere private and safe.

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