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Burning Truth #8: Good information can be hard to come by
Truth #8: Good information can be hard to come by
Imagine that your phone alerts you that a wildfire has started, not so far away. When you look out the window, you notice the orange sky is getting darker with smoke and ash. Now you’re getting nervous. Is the fire coming your way? How fast? If you have to evacuate, which way should you go? You need more information, how do you get it?
Having already signed up for emergency alerts you got a head start with an early notification. Your local newspaper’s website reports the fire has progressed to a site 30 miles. However, this contradicts your county’s official website, which states the fire is still 50 miles away. Which one is accurate?
Talking to your neighbors, one says that they heard that the wildfire was traveling away and not a danger. A second neighbor heard on a local news radio station that the wildfire is mostly contained. A third read on Facebook that it was not contained at all and traveling fast in your direction. Which do you act on?
Between too little information and too much information (sprinkled with the inevitable misinformation), getting the right information can be difficult in a rapidly changing situation. In a wildfire (or any disaster), accurate information is critical to making good decisions. Unfortunately, wildfires travel fast and unpredictably — even official sources may not be able to keep up!
Always, err on the safe side. If you feel you may be at risk, then just leave.
Do you know where to get your local official information?
Are you signed up for emergency alerts?
If this post started you thinking, please think about
making a small donation
to make preparing for disaster fun and empowering.
Burning Truth #9: You may be away from home for 4 weeks. Or more.
Imagine that you’ve just learned that a wildfire is approaching your home. You are under an Evacuation Warning, meaning that you need to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice.
Then, tomorrow, you receive an Evacuation Order, meaning that you need to leave immediately. As you leave, you wave to your home, not knowing when or whether you will see it again. You end up being away from home until four weeks from today.
You read that right: Four weeks!
That’s not an uncommon scenario. According to data collected by the US Census Bureau, more than half of the people who reported having been displaced because of a wildfire in 2023-2024 were away from home for more than a month. Nearly one-third were away for more than six months or never returned to their home.
Here’s what the numbers say:
If you had to leave home tomorrow and couldn’t return for four weeks, where would you go at first? Where can you stay for a month? What would you need to have with you?
Think about it.
If this post started you thinking, please think about
making a small donation
to make preparing for disaster fun and empowering.
For insights about evacuating and returning home, enjoy these posts:
Check out our other Burning Truths.
Welcome to the 2024 Holiday Calendar!
In keeping with our tradition of giving back during the holiday season, we are delighted to kick off our
2024 Holiday Calendar: 9 Burning Truths for Wildfire Safety
In this year’s series, we bring you the nine insights our research has identified as most important for people to truly grasp in order to be able to make good decisions when facing a wildfire.
Enjoy!
Meet the Team: Lindsay Burr!
It’s been a week!
Big shoutout to our contributors! 👉🏿 Claim your place on the map. Donate now!
Our first week as an independent nonprofit passed by in a whirlwind! Here’s what we were up to:
- Updating our CRM (Contact and Relationship Manager), Salesforce, and starting up the learning curve of how to use it so that we can be mindful in our communications and effective in our collaborations – great for quickly finding who our contacts are in your area.
- Talking to our partners at UC Santa Cruz. Grant applications coming soon! We will use these grants for research to take our game-based learning experiences to the next level! We know we engage communities and effect behavioral change – let’s get more data!
- Students from San Jose State University are setting up our DAM (Digital Asset Manager), Box, so we can find what YOU want to see in the THOUSANDS of pictures and videos from our community events.
- Preparing our intriguing 2024 Holiday Calendar — Coming soon!
- Revisiting the Café Game to ensure that what we deliver what really matters, and keeps getting people excited and prepared for wildfire.
Most gratifyingly, you’ve kept us busy with your outpouring of support and congratulations.
You’ve helped us raise $1200, so far!
If you haven’t had a chance to claim your place on the map and fuel the vision of empowered communities, there’s still time!
👉🏿 Claim your place on the map. Donate now!
With sincere thanks and appreciation for all the support and cheerleading you give us! 🤗
— Susanne
Susanne Jul, PhD
Founder & Executive Director
Creative Crisis Leadership
A California nonprofit 501(c)3 corporation!
👉🏿 Donate now!
Special thanks to Zach Pipkin and his Salesforce magic for the map. More visualizations coming soon of where we are and where we’re having an impact.