Man, after watching the aftermath of some of these fires, about all I can come up with is underground bunker to keep preps safe.

About the perfect storm as far as ruining what you have done to prepare.

Thoughts??

DOc

The only way to keep preps safe from a fire like that is to have preps in multiple locations.

Prepping for everything is not practical. Between tornado's, fire, flooding, mud-slides, hurricanes, etc. You've got to pick what's the most likely event to transpire in your area. In dry climates with stuff that burns. That would be fire. Your prep has to be a feasible way to evacuate.

it reinforced my goals of:
having shit off site
stock piling cash

it's not an emergency for everyone. I am in Texas and my house didn't burn to the ground. With enough money, you can go away a while, wait for the insurance check from your motel/hotel, go back and rebuild. Sucks, and sucks hard, but I think what it shows is you are more likely to have SHTF for just you in a local area than all over the country/world. If you have 3k for a hotel stay and transportation you'll be bored but just fine at the end of it.

When I was choosing bug out location / retirement homes I had to choose between a gorgeous place in the mountains that was loaded with pines or a place down in the foothills with few trees.
After discovery the history of forest fires in the area I decided it would never be a safe bug out location in a forest.
I do miss the forest though.

This reinforces to prep for what is most likely to come YOUR way, and different things come different ways for different people.

IE, even job loss risk is different for different folks. Some have very secure jobs, some are 100% indisposable, and some are easily replaced or work in volatile markets that are easily wiped-out.

For me, a wild-fire isn't even on my radar. But for somebody out west it sure better be on the radar of hazards...

Out where I live in the desert fire is about my only worry. Underground  is the way to go to store things (see fire shelters in Australia).

I recut defensible space around my house every spring. Planning to cut and run at the first sign of fire is a plan to lose whatever you dont take with you. Couple years ago a fire came up to within a few hundred yards of the house. It was stopped at the last fire guard, if it would have jumped that guard it would have crossed a few hundred yards of dry pasture grass in minutes before hitting my defensible space. There were measures in place to fight there too if it burned up that close.

Best cause for an underground bunker/storm shelter away from the house that I have heard of.

Yep, I agree. The true, or realistic, preppers are always ahead of the risk-management curve.

They identify the most likely or most probable risks, and adjust their preps accordingly. That includes risks from various hazards directed against their primary residence or retreat, so obviously the factor of where you locate that structure in the first place is critical.

Aside from areas prone to forest fires, locating and building a residence in the middle of 'Tornado Alley' is unwise risk-management as well.

AZ does a pretty good job managing the federal and state wildland fire situation, but things happen. Our property up in Northern AZ, if the conditions are bad, there's not a lot we can really do. We clear away the pine needles and thin out the trees, but if that fire gets up in the tree tops, we'll have to walk away and hope for the best.

The concern there too is, even though I'm familiar with the fire service roads and multiple ways out, you could very easily end up getting stuck and burn up, especially if your vehicle gets disabled.

Underground tornado shelter . stuff won't burn that way.

Thing is once this stuff burns off, rains can cause major flooding issues.  And everyone will see your underground storage whatever.

Weigh all the options.  In the past we talked about keeping a trailer loaded, or being able to quickly load from totes on shelves in the garage, a bug out utility trailer.  Just hook up and go.

Think the person also had a boy in boyscouts so having totes of camping gear, cooking gear, camping food stuff, and whatever else made sense for weekend campouts and what not.

My personal opinion is you can't keep all your eggs in one basket, and even if someone lived in a concrete dome that won't burn in the wild fires, I am not sure you would be allowed to stay if the fire is coming at you.

Now and then we have folks say they will never ever bug out.  I don't wanna, but the right train wreck happens on the tracks closest to me and I am gone with time to grab animals and the bags that are ready.  I won't be looking for anything that is not right there ready to go.

I'd consider burying a shipping container.  A buried container is safe from a surface burn.  Found a good video of the matter.

Would going underground essentially make an oven?  If the fire stays for any length of time you may just cook to death, 500°F!

Bill

A fire would eat all the oxygen, and you would die underneath it, hot.

All the guys in California that said, “If it’s time to bury them it’s time to dig them up” might be wishing they had a buried one now as the looks at puddles of molten metal of harder to replace items in the remains of their charred house.

I'd like to add a comment with some historical background that some of you younger folks may not have heard... the Vietnamese term "di di mao"   ( rough translation is to leave now quickly) similar to the GI expression of FTS (first thing smoking) as in 'get the f out", typically on an aircraft

bar girls carried a considerable portion of their wealth in the form of gold jewelry... gold links that could be added or removed to buy them out of trouble... in Thailand the gold charms were numbered as to their mass in grams of gold (Baht bracelets)... old Spooks had gold ID bracelets with their Gold Rolex

luckily I don't have to worry about wild fires, but with a potential CAT 4+ heading my way a 50cal ammo can with the insurance papers, will, and other papers and a wad of pictures of former presidents and ambassadors is ready to go out the door...

good emergency communication is important... we had too much communication for Irma that over the years have come to trust as gospel... it was not,  and I made bad decisions

Pictures of the fire show where the fast moving fire would not really harm what was buried a little bit.

Now if a few trees burning fall across what you buried and they burn down to charcoal and nothingness, then that is different.

Some of the pictures show stuff at ground level not even seeming to get that much heat, but I would not trust that.

A member made a website after katrina and had several levels of preps.

One level was you wake up and grab the bag by the door as you run out in your pajamas and bunny slippers.  Ok, if you kept pants and boots right by the bed you can have those.  But spare clothes and footware were in in the bag cause you might have misplaced your bunny slippers.  Or the dog ate em.  You also might be exiting by your window if the fire is between you and the front door.  This is where a bag in the vehicle can be helpful, unless garage is attached.

There are more levels with more time being added each time.  Basically going up to something like a hurricane where you have a few days notice and can load up the truck and trailer and give work a short notice on you being out of town and you leave well ahead of the traffic jam that comes when people realize it is a bad one.

Course you might do this several times in your lifetime with it never mattering much.

Wherethereisnokatrina.com seems to be what I am thinking of.

Totally wrong on the name.  Theplacewithnoname is the site.

We had a crazy fire season a while back road patrol deputies were calling in brush fires on the radio once or twice a day. I decided wildfire was something to look at.  Mostly pasture no trees near house, hurricane country so falling trees are a threat, picked up 150' feet of retired forestry hose from the local FD they replace it like cops do body armor, bought a nozzel, cut into my pool pump for a discharge, during a renovation added 4 more hose bibs running from the well itself, have 100 ft of garden hose on each of 4 sides, installed a stand by gen set with the well on the gen, looked at screens for my roof vents, put fire extinguishers on outdoor equipment, garden sprinklers cover a very large portion of the back of the property, and I keep the disc on the tractor when it's sitting.

Half my sprinklers are 6 ft pvc sticks with a garden hose inlet wired to the garden fence so I can move them around thinking about how to attach them to the roof to keep it wet if a fire comes.

If your house is in the middle of a forest I think you maybe toast and need to look at bailing out. But you can do a few things to mitigate to possible danger if you aren't.

DeputyGadget... my uncle had a similar situation, and we plumbed a solid copper tube stand pipe up and around the eaves to the ridge of the roof (this was late 70's and copper was still reasonable) and attached a pair of large brass Rain Bird sprinkler heads, one on each end... the stream would overlap... he had a nearby pond, and could supply water with a direct gasoline engine to pump drive (he picked up a large fuel tank from a piece of grove equipment)

today there are better options, possibly propane generator to run a pump if you have a well, swimming pool, pond etc...

Out west the level of hurt these things can muster