Wild fire Season is here. Here is what you can do to BeReady .
Take a look at the defensible space around your home.
Expect public safety power shut offs (PSPS) during extreme fire danger.
Obtain Battery back up for medical and communication devices
Have a couple days (minimum) food and water in the house
Don’t forget your neighbors!
BeReady to evacuate
Consider the needs of large and small farm animals
Keep an eye on the weather Install smoke detectors, Free help may be available or call your local fire department.
Get fire extinguishers and fire smothering blankets
Use generators and heaters properly and with proper ventilation, install Carbon monoxide detectors
Create an evacuation plan in the event of wild fire.
Know alternate routes out of your neighborhood.
Consider wearing dust masks or respirators during and after wild fire
Never leave campfires unattended, properly dispose of cigarettes and matches, and avoid igniting materials in dry conditions
Wildfires spread rapidly in dry conditions, especially when fueled by wind.
Keep vehicles out of dry grass
Avoid target shooting during extreme fire danger
No one has the perfect family, you maybe the only person willing or able to make decisions in an emergency. Planning ahead for young people and people with impairments may help to preserve your mental health and make stressful times easier for your dependents.
Discuss a plan with your dialysis center and plan early for treatment
Invest in Portable coolers for refrigerated meds
Make sure you have information for a contact that knows your medical needs (your cell phone maybe unusable or locked up)
Install emergency lights in rooms
Elderly/Disabled
Some persons may not comprehend what is happening and maybe difficult to evacuate. Planning ahead is critical for caregivers. Have identifying information and contact info for in case they get separated from their care givers.
Be aware of shut ins in your neighborhood to avoid isolation
If you are unable to locate or connect with a loved one or friend who has been impacted by a current disaster event, the American Red Cross can help you locate them if they meet certain criteria.
If you live alone and are disabled
Contact your local fire department and police department to find out how to give them important information about you, including a recent photo that will help them rescue you.
Tell people you trust, such as family members, friends, and neighbors, that you have dementia and ask them to check in on you if there is an emergency.
Talk with your health care provider and paid caregivers about planning for your medical and personal care needs in an emergency.
Have an evacuation plan for the home
For caregivers
Stay calm and patient
Add comfort items to your emergency kit.
Add extra items to disaster kits such as eye glasses and hearing aids, canes, etc.
Be prepared to shelter in place if evacuation is not possible
Ask for help and find people and agencies that can help, provide advocates with your emergency plan
Language, cultural issues
Some people maybe triggered by loud noises and shaking and relive old trauma. They may not have English skills to understand what is going on.
Create disaster information in the language of the person. Use pictures. Learn basic words to explain earthquake, tornado, safe, evacuate etc.
Neurodivergent (autism)
If you or family members are neuro divergent and will have trouble coping with emergencies consider finding safe and quiet places mentally and physically. If you are in a shelter with many people you might ask for a quiet place or request medical help. There is no need to “tough it out”.
Children
Create a family password or phrase to prevent your child from going with a stranger.
Teach children when to call 911
Make sure kids have an emergency contact person and know how to reach them
You may know the story of the infamous Donner party
The Donner party was a group of pioneers who thru a series of mishaps tried to travel over the Sierra Nevada range just North of Lake Tahoe a bit late in the fall of 1846. Another person had been stranded near a small lake on the pass the year before, so there was already a small cabin there which they sheltered in. Apparently they did not suffer from the cold, but after an arduous journey thru the great basin desert they arrived at the top of mountain to heavy snow and were low on food. Read more about the Donner party
Map of the Route the Donner Party took. Wikipedia
The immigrants were from the Midwest where the winters can be harsh, so they felt they knew how to deal with cold weather, but they were un-prepared to deal with 22.5 feet (6.9 meters) of snow. They also were famers, not hunters skilled at finding food and suspicious of the indigenous people who lived on the land. They were late on the road and decided to push over the mountains from near present day Reno, Nevada. This was a time when people had wagons drawn by oxen (cattle), thin leather shoes and heavy woolen clothes. Eventually some members of the the group resorted to cannibalism. But not all and not all with the same intentions.
There are many theories and stories on what went wrong. Studying the story of the Donner party may help to enlighten us to survival problem solving. But they might have benefited to have Tiffany Stanton in their party. Tiffany is a med student who went on a three day trip in the mountains in April 2025 and got caught in a snow avalanche. Despite being injured, cold and alone she survived by knowing what to forage and by trying to find her way out. Here is the SFgate story. A Georgia woman spent three weeks lost in winter in the sierras
Tiffany and her parents, SFgate.com
What can we learn from Tiffany to survive?
Know what is edible. Tiffany survived by eating wild leeks. Other than some some snow blindness she did pretty well and found an unlocked cabin where she was rescued. There is one account that someone, probably a native American, left a bunch of wild onions on the door step of the Donner party cabin. This means the local tribes knew the immigrants were up there and were hungry.
I wasn’t initially sure I’ve be able to survive
But learning that pine tree bark and needles make a nice tea, that I can chew grass and eat dandelions makes me more confident. I understand the Donner party did have pine tree tea, as well as dogs, pack animals and leather which they ate. One group of people did try to walk out and resorted to murdering their Indian guides and consuming them. The Breen family who were Irish immigrants did not loose any of their members and did not resort to cannibalism. There are stories that the last man left at the lake camp may have become deranged and cannibalized the other survivors.
Know what to eat if lost in the wilderness:
If there is snow on the ground, you might find edible plants at a lower elevation.
If it is very hot and dry you might look for shady spots or springs
Leeks/onions
Miners lettuce
Cattail hearts
Early berries
Pine nuts
Grass (chew and spit out)
Dandelions
Clover
Desert plants that contain water
Small birds and mammals
Insects, snails, crustaceans
Before you hike, learn how to BeReady if something goes wrong
Pexels
Tell someone where you are going, have a plan for when they should be concerned
Wear clothes and food wear that are appropriate for the conditions
Download maps of the area you will be hiking in so that you can use GPS in your cell phone if you have no signal. Conserve battery power
Carry Bear Spray for wild animals and for the human kind.
Know what is can be foraged in the area you will be in, Never eat, or let your kids eat, something you cannot identify with one hundred percent certainty, and never eat wild mushrooms without expert training and knowledge.
If you don’t have a clear direction of were to go to find help, stay put.
Build a smokey signal fire if possible (Be fire aware, windy days may cause wild fire)
If you decide to find your way out be aware of direction and the motion of the sun. Follow streams to find civilization
If you travel, leave evidence and trail markers to show you were there
Stay optimistic, stay calm and don’t give up!
In the Desert
If you plan to travel into parts of the United states and other parts of the world, be aware that Your cell phone may not work for calling. Don’t underestimate the desert in the Great Basin, Death Valley, Mojave, Great Salt Lake Desert, Chihuahuan and Sonoran Deserts, Baja, Columbia, Wyoming and Snake river plains can be very remote and getting stranded in these places in the winter or summer can be deadly.
Learn how to establish GPS coordinates with your phone
Tell someone were you are going
Travel with plenty of water. Think a few gallons for you and possibly for your car.
If your car in unreliable don’t go to far off read.
If you can not walk far stay on the pavement
Know how to do basic automobile repairs and carry your car kit.
Children
