6 ms·
Aussie here, lived in extreme fire danger areas most of my life so this is a situation I've been in several times. 0. Yourself. If you die, all of the stuff be
by synicalx 9y ago
Aussie here, lived in extreme fire danger areas most of my life so this is a situation I've been in several times.
0. Yourself. If you die, all of the stuff below is largely irrelevant to you. Don't stick around, don't try to defend your property unless you've gone to great lengths to make it defensible.
1. Pets. If anyone leaves a pet behind to be burned alive, they also deserve to be burned alive.
2. Documents; titles, wills, deeds, insurance, medical stuff, tax stuff, identification, anything important. If you have a filing cabinet, consider just wheeling the whole thing out (if possible) and putting it in the back of your car, if there's a fire bearing down on you don't waste time sorting through stuff.
3. 24 - 48 hours worth of supplies. Water is essential, also consider food bars, batteries, and of course any medication. In fact, I'd consider having a go bag of this stuff on hand and ready to go every summer if you live in a fire danger area.
4. A radio. You need to know what's going on, and a radio is one of the best ways to do this during a fire.
5. Medication, again. Don't forget your meds, or your families, or your pets.
Once you have that sort of stuff in order, second priorities;
1. Get some photos of the inside and outside of your house. Insurance companies are scum and will try and get out of holding up their end of your policy however they can.
2. Collect up irreplaceable stuff like photos, hard drives etc.
3. Time permitting, move any fuel (as in stuff that burns) away from your house.
4. Time still permitting, block up your gutters and fill them with water. Also seal any windows as best you can and move anything flammable away from them.
5. As you're leaving, turn on all your sprinklers if you have them.
Ideally, you want to be out of there long before the fire is anywhere near you. We get told to make the decision to stay or go about 24 hours before our properties are threatened by the fire but it's not always easy to know when or if that's going to happen. But if you can see the fire in the distance I'd suggest going RIGHT NOW, and if you can see flames and they're reasonably close then it may be too late to leave safely.
- sethrin 9y ago1. Fuck pets.
- hayden592 9y agoYou are an asshole
- synicalx 9y agoI have to know, what'd that post say? I love internet fights
- Stratoscope 9y agoIf you really want to know, go to your user profile and turn on the "showdead" setting. Fair warning: it was vile.
- synicalx 9y agoNiiiiccceee BTW, thanks for the tip!
- sethrin 9y agoAmerica has internalized Disney-esque values about certain animals. I'm from rural Alaska and you'll pardon my not having any illusions about whether nature is in fact red in tooth and claw. Pets are no more important than any other possession. They are not human, and they can be easily replaced. They are chattel: that is a fact, not an opinion.
- synicalx 9y agoMost people are attached to their pets, whether or not that attachment has a basis is cold hard rational thought is largely irrelevant. There's no need to be so rude about it either, if you had of just posted this earlier instead of what you originally posted, you might have started an actual conversation.
- Stratoscope 9y agoI asked my cat what she thought of your opinion. She yawned lazily and said, "Please inform your misguided friend that we are not chattel. Thank you."
- Tempest1981 9y agoOn 2nd #4: What's a good way to block 5-10 gutters/downspouts?
- synicalx 9y agoNot an easy way to do it really unless you plan to do it ahead of time and go buy a cap or and expanding plug. I wouldn't recommend stuffing some rags or anything down one as they're both flammable and absorbent so the water may just go right through it over time. The idea is you want to make it harder for the fire to get a foothold on your roof - that's a death sentence for the house in most cases.
- KozmoNau7 9y agoStuff a rag partway down the drain pipe, and fill to the top with expanding PU foam (also known as spray foam). It's used in construction to fill gaps, such as between door frames and walls. Is it ideal? No. Is it a pain in the ass to remove? Yeah, kinda. But it expands and hardens to a watertight closed-cell foam plug, which is what you want. If you have a hardware store nearby, it's relatively inexpensive.
- synicalx 9y agoThat's a good idea, didn't even think of foam. Thanks!
- jldugger 9y ago> 3. 24 - 48 hours worth of supplies. Water is essential, also consider food bars, batteries, and of course any medication. The region that's on fire is like an hour's drive away from Berkeley. Unless you anticipate camping on the freeway, I don't see how 48 hours of water is really an essential. The supply chain isn't in much danger except in the very local area you would be evacuating.
- synicalx 9y agoThis is more blanket advice rather than anything specific to OP's situation. In Australia we've had bush fires hit remote communities who've then been short on all sorts of supplies for days at a time. Not to mention in having an extra days worth of 'stuff' you'll have enough to go around.