I think the HurCon (hurricane condition guide) checklist works better than the FireCon checklist because hurricanes develop more slowly and arguably, more predictably, than wildfires. In some sense, preparing for wildfires is more like preparing for an earthquake than an approaching storm because of their speed and unpredictability in many cases.

In many regions, fire season is year-round nowadays so it's always FireCon 5.

The distance cut-offs in the checklist can be useful--or not. I mean, I've seen wildfires spread great distances in a short period of time during windy conditions, and in other situations, you'll have a wildfire literally close enough to see the flames but life carries on pretty much as normal. I was in LA a few years ago on a busy street and the brown hills less than a couple miles away straight down this busy boulevard were on fire, you could see lots of flames on the hillside and a helicopter doing water drops, but everyone was carrying on like normal. Pretty surreal, actually.

One situation that catches people off guard every time is the sudden wildfire during the day. You leave for work in the morning and everything is fine, then a fire pops up while you're gone that threatens your neighborhood or housing tract, and your pets or grandma or your prized antique rocking chair that George Washington sat in is back at your house but you and a thousand of your neighbors are trying to jam back into your housing tract on the single road leading back there.

In that situation, the authorities may block anyone from going in, so the only way to get, say, your pet out is if (well, besides sneaking in) is to have a neighbor who is already there to bring the pet out.