As many of you know, our family has been sandwiched between the Dixie Fire and Caldor Fire. Last month, we helped my parents evacuate from the Dixie Fire close to Lake Almanor….and then tonight we participated in a second rescue.

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Evacuation Info

  • American Red Cross 315 Record Street Reno
  • Reno/Sparks Convention Center
  • Springs of Hope Church at 59 Bell Lane in Quincy
  • Los Molinos Veterans Hall at 7980 Sherwood Blvd

Animals

  • Plumas County Fairgrounds 204 Fairground Road, Quincy (large animals)
  • 201 Mill Creek Road, Quincy (small animals)
  • Recreation Center 101 Meadowview Lane, Chester
  • American Red Cross 315 Record Street Reno (Family+Small Animal)

For help with animals call Plumas County Animal Services at 283-3673.

Our Emergency List

  • First Aid kit.
  • Jumper cable kit.
  • Work gloves.
  • Good stable shoes on your feet.
  • Charged cell phone plus cable to charge in the car.
  • Large fire extinguisher, and make sure to check the gauge.
  • Food for a few days.
  • Medicines to last at least a few days.
  • One gallon of emergency water in addition to water bottle for each person.
  • Straps and ropes to be able to tie things down.
  • Fire resistant clothing in case you need to shield yourself from flames.
  • Full tank of gas before going toward an evacuation zone.

This list was originally published in my article Dixie Fire, and was so helpful during that experience that I opened that web page as a packing list for what to bring tonight. Please share the link with people you know who may be in an area that could be evacuated. If you are thinking about evacuating, please get your stuff together and leave earlier than you think you need to…do NOT wait.

The Chaos of Evacuating

Every family thinks they are prepared to handle an emergency, but even if you’ve spent weeks or months preparing yourself it is always-I repeat ALWAYS-more chaotic than you would think. It is always the little things that add up, so please leave earlier than you think you need to. We thought we were ready too…and then.

We thought we were ready to help family evacuate from the Dixie Fire if need be. We have been watching the fire’s progress, checking the fire maps, wind mapping, and thought we were ready to go at a moment’s notice. But then we had trouble with the trailer hitch attachment to be able to use our brake-lights. Then we discovered we also had a flat tire on the trailer we were going to borrow to go help…little things quickly put us behind on leaving and it took us a while to get on the road and ready to go.

With the amount of time that it took us to get on the road, evening traffic had mostly cleared and we were able to make reasonable time based on speed limits and road safety instead of being held back by commuters trying to get home from work. Luckily there did not seem to be that many people on the road seeking to evacuate either, so it was mostly open roads all the way there.

Someone put an American flag by the entrance to their farm, and it gave me a much needed boost on our way in to go do what we could. There was a sense of optimism and community that made me realize that we were not alone in this.

A few moments later we saw this large helicopter being serviced. If you look closely you can see someone out on the tarmac walking toward the helicopter, and you can also see the forest service (green) water truck putting down water and the smoke off in the background.

Here is a map showing the Nervino Airport. This will help you to orient your view of the smoke to the fire map and have a better understanding of which communities need to evacuate. We were very pleased to see this helicopter as well as a few others of different sizes as we passed the airport. There were also some bulldozers and other equipment being staged at the HHY-70 rest area but unfortunately I did not get a picture.

This is the current fire map, showing the outline of where the fire has been and more intensity where it is still burning.

Just yesterday I was asking about the area within the red circle. I wondered why there were no warning zones and posted this to Twitter asking if anyone had any input on why there were no warnings bordering the mandatory evacuations shown in red.

The answer I received from various people on social media was that firefighters had hoped to push the fire into the Walker Burn Scar and stop it’s progress to the south. Unfortunately that has not worked and the fire is advancing beyond the Walker Scar and headed toward the communities surrounding Lake Davis.

At this point most of Plumas County is under either fire warning or evacuation orders. Please use this link to keep up-to-date on where the fires are and be prepared to leave if a fire comes your way. Remember…the message here is to always leave sooner than you think you need to. You will have things take more time than you think, or something small going wrong that sets you back. Give yourself extra time and be prepared even if you are not in a warning zone.

Stay safe everyone!