Fleeing Fire

Well we had some excitement day before yesterday. DH came home and said there was a fire about 5 miles from us and he wanted us ready to leave now.

Let me digress a little bit. A few years ago we had a fire reeeeeeeeeealy close, the Mauricio fire. It probably got as close as about 2 miles as the crow flies (which is, coincidentally, how the fire burns if the wind is going in the right direction). DH, being a volunteer firefighter, was able to tell us when we needed to worry, which he did. It took Aimee and I two HOURS to get ready to leave. Now, I know all about BOB's (Bug Out Bags) but hadn't yet packed one. Silly wife, living in the mountains, and not having a BOB. We never did have to leave, but it was a tense week.

So since then I have been assembling a BOB. Traditionally, each person in the household would have his own BOB, packed according to standards for his own body weight, carrying what he needed for at least 3 days. Then if there is a need to evac, each person grabs their own BOB, and gets in the vehicle and leaves (or walks out if need be). The problem with that is littles and middles can't carry much, if anything, so you have to think outside the BOB.

While I will post more on BOBs when I start the spring cleaning threads, I will go into what we do a bit here. We have a bug out box, which is the large, huge bin that WM sells, that has individual bottled water, pedialyte, as well as a lot of misc. stuff. Meds, food, bottle liners, on and on are all in that box. Clothes are in old back packs. And I have a list of stuff to grab. This is stuff that we either don't have room for, or it's cost prohibitive to have extras (although I try to buy one thing for the BOB each week).

We could have walked out the door in 5 minutes, although we'd have had to do some shopping pretty quickly after reaching our evac point. We were ready to comfortably leave, without having to buy anything except some camping supplies (paper plates, etc) in 40 minutes.

Thankfully, the fire wasn't as close to us as "they" had feared, and it was contained quickly. It was a great test of our ability to evac quickly, and has been a good kick in the butt for improving the BOB. I redo the BOB quarterly, but still need to work on it. It's an evolving thing. You have to change out clothes seasonally and as kids grow. Same with diapers. food has to be rotated in or out. You have to keep financial papers updated. You have to update your contact list, and make sure your friends still don't mind you and 5 kiddoes pitching a tent in their yard for who knows how long.

Stay tuned for posts on what to have in your BOB and how to make it work for you!

Have a blessed day!