Flee!

Here's how I stay prepared for those horrid fires

My heart goes out to all those affected by the fires. Those were my old stomping grounds in L.A. just a few years ago, so I was watching the maps and alerts with anxiety and prayers.

For everyone out there who could at some point be threatened by a fire, I thought I’d share what I do up here in the hills of Saint Helena in Northern California, which is right in the middle of the burn zone of the 2020 Glass Fire. My house is the only house standing on my side of the street, and I saved it with a roof sprinkler and divine intervention.

Here’s my FLEE! envelope, which I keep right by the bed.

I used to have boring white index cards, but I didn’t like the ugly reality of being under near-constant threat, so I made them as pretty as I could. It seems superficial, I know, but after a certain age you start to realize that the dangers and disasters aren’t going to stop comin’ at ya, and while there will be those regrettable, inevitable tragic moments, the baseline, the everyday, the by-far-greater-majority of the time needs to be the genre of your choosing. Personally, I prefer a mix of high-comedy Jane Austen and romantic-comedy Nora Ephron, at least as much as possible.

These cards have a note of Austen’s juvenilia, “Love & Freindship” [sic.], which includes a number of flights and escapes and is perhaps most notable for the line, “Run mad as often as you chuse, but do not faint.”

But again, just because I’ve written “FLEE!” in pretty lettering, please don’t think I’m taking any of the fires less than completely seriously. Our old family home which my parents had built and in which I grew up was burned in 2018; and for a couple of days I was sure I’d lost my house here before I found out the fire had burned most of the trees but had stopped at the water line - on the front steps (see below).

I know that shocked feeling of loss, and I’ve lived in a ghost landscape for several years now - at first blanketed in white like snow, and then blackened like a nightmare, with that particular smell of smoke stuck to everything. And then the endless paperwork, and the heavy expenses that the insurance companies don’t pay for. And every year, as soon as the sun comes back out, I’m on constant alert for sirens and wisps of smoke in the air. All clouds on the horizon are suspicious. All neighboring barbecues are cause for alarm. All summer lightening storms require staying up all night, vigilantly peeking out the window every few minutes.

So believe me: I’m not really romanticizing it. I’m just trying to get by.

The cards inside are steps in order or importance, because even though I know exactly what needs to be done now, in a panic at 5:15 am with smoke in the air, a glow out the window, the power cut off, and no lights, my brain starts frizzing out.

The first card has listed:

1. Determine risk.
2. Turn on roof sprinkler (the longer the sprinkler is on, the better. Turn it on manually if you can. But also invest in a smart system so you can turn it on from anywhere (if the power is on). Also, hook it up with metal hoses so they don’t melt.

The Iron Owl Roof Sprinkler. Buy it now. My neighbor laughed at it and said he could build one himself for a fraction of the price. Maybe he could have, but we’ll never know. He didn’t do it. He doesn’t have a house. Buy it now!

3. Take a video of the contents of the house, including closets and drawers and anything important. This is for the insurance claim. (You can do this one now.)
4. Pack.
5. Close windows.
6. Remove tinder from the porch - anything, like boxes waiting to go out to the recycling, which are easy to light.
7. Check the Blink cameras. These are for seeing as much as I can about a fire’s progress while the power is still on.
8. Set the house alarm.
9. Lock the door.

The second card has all the Essentials. Obviously, I'm not going to forget my dog, Agatha, but for some reason I feel better knowing she's at the top of the list.

Agatha is ready to go anywhere, anytime. Here she is in Athens. If your pet doesn’t fit in a bag, of course make sure you have with you everything you need for quick and safe transportation.

I keep all my family heirlooms that have no monetary value but are completely irreplaceable (e.g., the Christmas stocking my grandmother knitted when I was born) in vintage suitcases, which I can access easily in my closet. Make sure the suitcases are not too heavy and that the handles hold, leather especially.

The next cards are the things I would want to take with me, in order of importance. Sometimes you have an hour to evacuate; sometimes you have 5 minutes. I find it good to have an expandable list of priorities.

I also make sure I have plenty of bags and baskets on hand. My extra-large French market basket is perfect: I can throw things in it and it stays open, but I also easily can swing the handles over my shoulder.

If you’re ever needed a justification to buy yourself an extra-large French market basket, this is it. No kidding. It’s my go-to.

Other safety measures include: making sure smoke detectors are working, having a fire extinguisher, having mini fire extinguisher cans in the kitchen and near work areas where things spark, cleaning out gutters, raking leaves, having your neighbors on your favorites list so if they call in the middle of the night and your phone is on silent mode it will ring through, and having a back-up generator to make sure any remote watering systems and camera systems stay up and running as long as possible.

I often think longingly of the times I lived in big cities and college towns where there were no fire threats, at least not like these, and I conclude that I should probably move somewhere else…but I grew up in these hills and I love them.

If you’re feeling rooted in a risky spot like I am, then I hope these notes help. If you have any more tips, please let me know in the comments!

A friend of my neighbor crept past the evacuation lines and I was sent this photo after the fire. I’d been heart-sinkingly positive my little house had burned. I couldn’t believe it hadn’t. I still can’t.

My house is in the background. This was the landscape in almost all of our neighborhood. A couple of houses behind mine survived, thanks in part to my roof sprinkler stopping the progress; there was a similar sprinkler situation down the road. A roof sprinkler might not save your house. But then again, it might.