I think I will make a RED FLAG WARNING SURVIVAL LIST!

Last night a RED FLAG WARNING came across the weather screen. That is to indicate an impending potential for high wind, low humidity and lightening. We get them at least once a month. Forest fires usually result. A month ago in Eagle, Idaho several homes and thousands of acres burned up in a very short time from lightening caused fires.

Yesterdays warning was real.

· 70 miles per hour wind
· Several homes burned
· 40,000 with out power at midnight
· 7200 with out power 18 hours later
· One camper dead from falling tree
· 80 injured at the county fair
· Massive downage of trees in Boise
· Multiple forest fires in southern Idaho
· 100% of Boise fire vehicles dispatched
· Fires all caused by downed power poles

What prep would be appropriate?

What do they recommend? In southern California, it's evacuation. Get your necessaries packed up - some in the vehicle(s), some next to the door? Food & water for a couple of days on the road.

Do you have animals? You'll need a plan for them. Housepets are easy, horses and cows more difficult if you don't have stock trailers.

in preparation for an evacuation you might look at your communication requirements,(1) between family members within and outside the impacted area...something other than cell phone. have a phone tree..who contacts who, where to meet...and (2)a good source of real time intelligence.. an ability to monitor the on-scene communications of forestry and fire agencies...might give you a head start on the evacuation process...(3)have a predetermined stay-go requirement...when a criteria is met we will do this action...eg..if the wind is from the north west, and the fire line crosses county road 25 we move north on state 44.

when I see videos of the California woods fires I always wondered why those homes that have obvious swimming pools don't have a copper piped "rainbird" sprinkler system on the roof,mister heads on the soffit, and a propane powered alternator that can run a pump supplied by the swimming pool, possibly triggered by a remote radio/cell phone call..regards

Our family has found a prioritized packing list to be most helpful. Ours begins with people, pets, and (heirloom) photos and memorabilia.

We have loaded up our cars twice, but have never actually had to evacuate. In each case, a written list made the process a lot less stressful; we would have been able to save the really important stuff.

Pretty nasty situation.

Seems to me there are two possibilities to plan for.

The most likely is that the combination of downed trees and downed power lines means you're bugging in whether you like it or not.

But if you need to bug out (immediate forest fire threat), a vehicle may not get you all the way out.

Time to clear safe zones around the homestead. It also pays to look closely at the house. Gutters full of leaves are prime spots for an ember to start a fire. USFS and other agencies have detailed instructions.

If you need to make a run for it you need a vehicle that is fueled and in good working order. If it gets to look like it may go that way it pays to have already determined what things you want to take with you. Important papers, vital keepsakes, irreplaceable items should be identified ahead of time and made ready for quick evacuation. Again USFS and other agencies have handy guides.

A couple comments on your points.

One of the lessons learned during the 07 wildfires here is that cell phone voice communication was unreliable and sporatic because everyone relied on it during the evacution and it overloaded the system. But text messages, because they require less bandwidth and could wait till bandwidth was available, went through fairly well. Some services (Verizon, and probably several others)can text to and from email addresses. A tech-savvy family could use this in place of an "out of town contact" to keep everyone in the loop.

Several of the Ramona residents during the fires turned on their sprinkler systems before evacuating. It actually sucked so much water that the firefighters had to go around and turn off the water to these places in order to get enough pressure for their hoses.

Without realizing at the time, passed by your place two years ago traveling McCall-to-Boise after week-long rafting trip. I seem to recall that your general area not heavily forested.

If my sometimes-failing memory is right, can it be assumed that fire-related forced evacuation less-likely, but that you might suffer spill-over effect of surrounding forest fires, like extended loss of power or extended road closures (possibily affecting ability to replenish food supplies or propane etc)?

<I seem to recall that your general area not heavily forested>

You are correct. Actual trees are one mile.

The immediate fuel is yellow grass and scrub brush. It burns like gas. The leading edge of a firestorm in cheatgrass looks like a 100' tall surf wave coming at 50 mph.

I have a 300' green belt around the building. With a RED FLAG WARNING I put the lawn system into a 2 minute/channel test program and continually water the lawn.

For the building I put in 30 sprinkler heads of 4GPM each. I run these with a 5 horse pump if we have electricity. If not I use a PTO driven generator on the back of a tractor.

One of the biggest problems that have occured is stranded travelers. When the road is closed, a significant percentage of the stranded demand services that we cannot provide. During one four hour closure, people were near fighting on the highway. Being we are a gun shop with a thousand firearms and their related ammunition, we cannot open the doors without some forethought.

for road obstructions (wood) a length of 5/16 chain with hooks, single man buck/crosscut saw plus your ax might come in handy,and if you have room in your pickup... a steel 6ft spud bar to roll cut sections out of the way...