About 3 p.m. on Tuesday, August 10th the phone rang. Caller ID said the caller was “Bannock County”. I answered the phone and an automated message started to play telling us that there was a fast-moving wildfire near our area and that we should prepare to evacuate.

Preparing the evacuate isn’t the same as actually evacuating. I was experiencing the Enhanced 911 Reverse Calling system that the county installed several years ago. But, I’d been seeing on Twitter that there was a fire not too far from our house so the advice to prepare to evacuate was good advice.

Some time ago Nina and I had decided that if we needed to evacuate, the motor home would be our evacuation method. We could put whatever we needed in there and hook on the Chevy Tracker so it could be towed. I’d drive the motor home and Nina would drive the Toyota Avalon and we’d be on our way. We’d have a place to sleep and whatever we needed for a couple of days.

However, we were actually singularly unprepared to prepare to evacuate! I went out and got the motor home ready to drive away and noticed that we had only about a third of a tank of gas. That wasn’t going to get us very far! It also hadn’t been cleaned up since our last use of the vehicle … which was last year!

I put the equipment on the front of the Chevy Tracker so it could be hooked onto the motor home and towed. Nina gathered up some of the “absolutely must be saved” items. We both got some clothes together. I turned on the sprinkler system to wet down the yard (with no idea whether that would make a difference). And then settled down to wait for the next step.

About 4:45 pm we got the next call to say that the fire had been contained and the need to prepare to evacuate had been cancelled.

This morning’s paper said that the fire had been knocked down quickly as the fire department had been notified almost as soon as the fire started. Some children playing with matches and burning toilet paper were the source of the fire. It came close to a couple of residences, but never got closer than a half-mile or so of our house.

I’ve no idea how much time we’d have from the time that the “evacuate” phone call came and when we’d need to be on our way. In this instance we “kind of prepared” but I think it would have taken a bit of time to really be ready to go. So, with this experience in mind, we’ve made a few decisions.

1. The motor home needs to be always ready to go. That means full of gasoline, cleaned up, stocked with sheets, towels, and sundry other items. The vehicle spends about half the year winterized … and that’s it’s condition now. Rather than wait for the first use to un-winterize the motor home, I need to do that as soon as the threat of freezing is past. With the anti-freeze still in the holding tanks, I couldn’t load up with water before leaving. By the end of this week, the motor home will be ready should we need it.
2. All of the “must take with us” stuff is scattered around the house and much of it is downstairs. We’ve decided to gather all of that stuff into our bedroom closet so that if we have to evacuate, we know what we’re going to take with us.
3. It’s not a certainty that if we need to evacuate that we’ll both be at home. We have busy lives and quite often one or both of us are not here. I’m not sure what the alternate plan is (we’ll have to work that out), but which ever of us is not here may not be able to get back here before the evacuation order happens.

Several years ago a wildfire came over the hills to the west of us and did some pretty incredible damage. It was before we moved here, and there’s been a LOT of new housing built since then. I think we’ve become a bit complacent!

Kudos and props to the fire departments in the area for quickly knocking down this fire. I’m glad we have the reverse 911 system in place and to know that it works. While there’s no need to go overboard on this preparedness bit, we can certainly be better prepared!