Preparing for fire in Nevada County
Are you ready if a wildfire hits?
Wild fire is all too familiar in our area and around the country this time of year. Are you prepared in case of an emergency? I can honestly say until last year I was not. I live in Alta Sierra. We are a sub division, so I am safe from that threat of wild fire right?
Not the case, Alta Sierra is extremely susceptible to wild fire. With the only 4 primary ways in and out of this subdivision of over 3,000 homes it will be a mad dash to escape a fast moving fire.
Almost 2 years ago I was home cleaning and kept hearing the fire planes flying over my house. We seem to hear them a lot as they head to fires in our special place in Nevada County. At first I thought nothing of it, then 20…30…40 minutess went by. The planes were still sounding very close so I headed onto my deck to see where they were headed. All I could see was a huge plume of smoke. I quickly jumped online to check a wonderful resource we have called
Yubanet. The information stated a fire on Dog Bar Rd. Hmmmmmm that is just a mile or so away. So I grabbed my shoes, phone, purse, wallet and headed to my car, alerting my husband that I was headed out to see where this fire was. As I made my way through Alta Sierra the smoke was so close. I made it to an area I knew I could see. There it was – a forest fire running uphill into the back of Alta Sierra. Planes, helicopters and ground crews working the fire. but the threat was closer than was comfortable to me.
Word spread quickly. My sister works in Emergency Preparedness for the State of California and called to tell us she was headed up to help if we needed it. My mind said we had plenty of time as the fire had a few miles and a golf course to get across before hitting my house. I remember my sister telling me prepare to get out before it is too late. So I ran home and started to gather things. As I rushed around telling my kids to grab a few outfits and stuffed animals I realized I had no idea what to take.
Thankfully my sister was sending me texts and they read. Take only what you need.
- A few days of clothes
- Pets, pet food etc
- Pictures
- Computers with important files and digital pics
More importantly she said to walk around our house and take pictures of every room from several angels, open cabinets and take pictures of the contents inside, then outside the home, in the garage and all around our home. Then the last thing she said was “if you can replace at the store ie Target, KMart etc. Don’t take it”. I told my kids this and suddenly most of the things we wanted to take didn’t matter… it was stuff and could be replaced. We wanted pictures, jewelry, kids artwork all those items that you can not replace.
So I empower you all to take a few minutes use resources like http://www.readyforwildfire.org/Wildfire-Action-Plan/ and put a plan together with your family.
I have lived in Alta Sierra most of my life and we have not had a wildfire that seriously threatened the development, but it’s smart to be safe rather than sorry.
