I was reading this article on some people in California refusing to leave their homes despite a mandatory evacuation order and a monster fire bearing down on them.
I can appreciate worrying about your home and wanting to protect it at all costs but this is a fucking forest fire. It is a fucking force of nature and it won’t be deterred in the slightest having you standing there in defiance and pissing on the brush to put it out. It will steamroll right over your stupid fucking ass as if you weren’t even there. And no, there is no, “I’ll leave at the last minute” bullshit. As the article notes someone thought that and wham…fire rolled over them and gave them 2nd and 3rd degree burns.
Now, one might say if someone wants to stay there and die that is their own lookout and I could even agree with that. However, once you get in trouble and start screaming for help once you realize your massive stupidity someone else will probably try to rescue you. You have now put those people in danger and removed them from doing something else to help battle the fire or saving someone who really deserves to be saved.
It is a HUGE freaking fire people! It will not stop for you…at all! GTFO! Now!
I swear the fire department should just firebomb anyone’s house who refuses to leave. Bet they will run out then and save everyone a lot of hassle.
Personally, I would never live in California [though in this world strange shit happens so there is a minor possibility that I might end up living there for reasons beyond my control] but if I had to, I would try to live in a tile roofed stuccoed cinderblock or poured concrete building, with a small in ground ‘storm cellar’ designed to hold belongings and protect them from fire. I would have the nice cerescape [is that right? dryland decorative landscaping] of white marble chips, decorative molded tiles as walkways, decorative boulders and a few potted plants [probably a small topiaried bay laurel and a topiaried rosemary, and maybe a few herbs] with a border of three hundred feet from the house. I am currently scanning in my old paperbacks as they are dissolving, and I prefer to read ebooks, and I prefer my laptop [and mrAru is the same] so in case of fire we would stow the burnables that we want to keep safe in the shelter, drop the rollydoor type metal shutters on teh doors and windows, load the pets into the cages and into the vehicles, grab the bail out bags and hit the road.
We are the type that if mrAru had been duty stationed in florida for Andrew, we would have loaded our crap into the trailor, headed to the refugee camp, and with the rest of the people in our SCA canton made our own little encampment. We would have seriously NOT been shown on screen by CNN because they would have walked into camp and the interview would have gone:
CNN: SO … you had to evacuate due to Andrew?
us: Yes we did, the weather was terrible … they moved us here 3 days ago.
CNN: Where did they evacuate you from?
us: Orlando. We are a military family.
CNN: How does it feel to lose your worldly possessions?
us: Well, we were all packed up for the move, and everything on the trailer and in the vehicles about 4 days ago, and we were waiting for the evacuate order. I’m being rude, would you like an expresso? Maybe some crepes suzette? A snack?
CNN: Um, what?
us: Well, we packed everything - didnt lose anything except some cheap furniture that was in the housing unit, it came furnished. We packed everything of ours so nothing was lost. We brought the food … so, would you like a snack?
CNN: Um … no thanks … CUT, we cant use this footage … they arent patheitc losers that have the brains of a jellyfish …
<I can cook a full medieval feast in a campground for 50 people with 2 sculleries … my SCA specialty was field cookery =)>
Well, you see, CA is no more dangerous than any other state. Some places have hurricanes, others have twisters, others have floods. Really, almost no one in CA is put into danger by the fires. The dudes who live out there in the bush are a teeny % of the population.
But yes, SCA folks are often good survivalists.
To answer the OP- it can be a good idea to stay and fight the fire.
If they do a door to door evacuation notification it would be nice to have a release form for them to sign saying “you stay your on your own. Will come back for you when it’s safe for the firefighters to come back.” In other words don’t call us we’ll call you.
You wouldn’t have evacuated Orlando for Andrew unless you just felt like leaving town for a while. The storm hit well, well south of there (Miami area). Hell, I started college just a bit north of Orland a few days after the storm hit. If it wasn’t for the news, you wouldn’t have known there was a hurricane (by then bouncing oaround in the gulf).
I don’t know if you’ve ever lived in a hurricane zone for an active season (Orlando is not really a high risk area - it’s pretty far inland). It doesn’t sound like it.
I grew up on the gulf coast. My mother is overly-cautious, so we would head north at the first suggestion. During a busy season, that could be three or four times. I seriously doubt you would pack everything you own three or four times in a two month stretch. Sure you’d evacuate - most due. But unless you want to pack all of your stuff up at the end of July and unpack it at the end of September, it’s likely you’ll leave things behind. Maybe you’re different.
Uh, no, all states’ natural disasters are **not **created equal. Some natural disasters cause more property damage, injury, and loss of life than others, and some states have higher occurrences of the particularly bad ones.
It depends. If your house is in a Malibu canyon surrounding by dried out brush and trees - you get the hell out.
However, when the Scripps Ranch area was hit in San Diego - it was people who stayed with their garden hoses that kept their homes. The fire in that neighborhood was more embers lighting off the next house, and if you just sprayed down the moving sparks you were fine.
Yes - there is a risk, but for some situations you ARE better off staying home and fighting it all.
Here’s a nice little map (Caution: PDF) that shows the frequency of Presidential disaster declaractions from late 1964 to early this year. You’ll notice that some states have a lot more color to them–California is by no means the worst, but there are a lot of states that have had a lot fewer declared emergencies.
The problem is, if you leave and it turns out that you overestimated the fire and could have saved your house if you’d stayed, then you’ve lost your house. While if you stay and it turns out that you underestimated the fire, then you’ve lost your house and you’re quite possibly dead.
Which sounds glib, but that’s exactly how a great number of people died in the “Black Saturday” Victoria bushfires here in Australia last summer. Many of the casualties were people who’d stayed to protect their homes, because they’d been trained to respond that way to bushfires. By the time it became apparent that this fire was much more serious, it was too late to get out even by car.
(And best wishes to the Australian firefighters who are no doubt helping to fight the blazes in California right now, returning the favour of the California firefighters who came here in February.)
That’s true, but actually CA is moderate in risk. Worst are the Hurricane states.
There’s a debate between “stay and fight” vs evacuate. I am not saying the “stay and fight” dudes are right, but they aren’t “idiots” for making that choice.
LOL, I dont know, I was never in Florida when Rob was stationed there, I just named the only navy base other than key west that I know about … and I spent a number of years living in Tidewater Virginia and was evacuated a couple of times.
Actually, I’m military, from a military family. Until we moved up here, we never owned a residence and the only reason we bought was Rob was told by the navy that they would not be changing his duty station location away from Groton CT … he flipped shore/sea numerous times here. Until a few years after we moved in, everything we owned could be packed in 8 hours into a 14 foot truck. Before I moved in and settled down with mrAru, everything I owned could be packed in 2 hours into a van. [my sofa and bed was a futon and frame, I had a small dresser, a side table and lamp, and a spiffy folding table with 2 folding chairs, a footlocker of kitchen crap and all my clothing fit into a foot locker. Very minimalist. My books took up the most space, and I tended to just leave them in their banker boxes.
Not everybody owns enough crap for a fullsized Mayflower semi =)
Humanity has placed a great deal of dignity in the concept of “going down with the ship.” To the extent that, in an emergency, people feel like if they stay in their home and die because of it, they’ll be seen as somehow brave.
Except, the notion of going down with the ship isn’t about bravery or nobility. It is the penance paid for being in charge of a ship that’s sinking. The captain fails to avoid catastrophe, so he pays for it with his life.
This doesn’t translate into staying in your house during a fire or flood or zombie invasion. The only penalty being paid is that of rejecting the evolutionary need to survive. If you put your house and your stuff above being alive on your list of important things, perhaps you deserve to be entombed in it.
According to Wiki’s U.S. Disasters by Death Toll, California barely rates compared to the hurricane states. Of course, the list spans centuries and includes wars, but still - not all of California is southern California. Here in the SF area, fires are relatively rare. I feel much safer here than I did in the South or Midwest, with their seemingly constant hurricane/tornado warnings.
In all fairness, the dude was 84 years old. He had been divorced twice and his third wife died. His only son committed suicide decades earlier so he had no family. I think at that point, I’d be like “fuck it. I’ll take on the volcano.”
Well, here’s the thing. The professional firefighters aren’t going to spend all day at just your house wetting down the roof and the ground, then putting out any little stray sparks.
Unless the fire goes really bad (which has happened,like in Victoria) it’s not all that dangerous. Now, personally, I’d make my Signif other leave with the cats and a few valuables, don my old volunteer firefighter gear, and stay to fight. Unless the wind was bad and they were talking firestorm.