How do you know when to evacuate from a wildfire? Not everyone gets the message in California alert system.
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. — At least 17 people have died and hundreds have been reported missing as wildfires blaze across Northern California. The number of deaths may be startling, but it reflects a troubling reality, experts say — that there’s only so much local governments can do to get people out of harm’s way before fast-moving fires consume their homes.
Fierce «devil winds» and near-record low humidity fueled the fires in California’s wine country, which had burned nearly 100,000 acres Tuesday and were almost entirely uncontained. Strong winds fanned the flames Sunday night into Monday, creating deadly infernos that destroyed entire neighborhoods — in the middle of the night.
Several counties ordered evacuations for affected areas. But even in the best of circumstances, experts say, not everyone will get the message about evacuations, and not everyone will be able to leave quickly. And these weren’t the best of circumstances.
«Most people were already asleep when the fires broke out. So that adds a major challenge,» said Daniel Berlant, spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire). «Plus in this situation, we had winds 50 to 60 miles per hour. So the fires were able to grow so rapidly that by the time the fire engines would even arrive at a street, the homes were already ignited.»
Michele Steinberg, who manages the wildfire division at the National Fire Protection Association, said there are several tools governments can use to spread the word about evacuations. One of the most effective, she said, is a «reverse 911» system in which homes get automated phone calls. In extreme circumstances, firefighters can also forgo fire suppression at first and instead go door to door telling people to leave, she said.
But even when local officials take those steps, it’s hard to make sure everyone knows to evacuate. And even when people get the message, they frequently choose to stay.
«The trends in the literature are that people wait,» Steinberg said. «They tend to wait and see, they tend to evacuate late… and by then it’s too late, by then fire is right on the doorstep, right on the road. And that’s an incredibly dangerous time to leave.»
Napa County, where two deaths have been reported, used reverse 911 calls this week to let residents know that cellphone service was being affected by the fires, a county spokesperson said. The county is also sending out evacuation alerts through a text-message service called Nixle. The number of people signed up for the alerts jumped from 28,000 on Sunday to nearly 80,000 on Monday, the county spokesperson said.
Sonoma County uses Nixle, too. The county also offers emergency notifications through SoCoAlert, which as of June had just 10,557 users in a county of a half-million people.
Local governments and Cal Fire have also taken to social media, posting a stream of wildfire and evacuation updates on Facebook and other platforms. The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Department has been answering questions on its Twitter feed.
But for some Northern California residents, those alert systems weren’t enough.
Many people interviewed by USA TODAY said they received no official warning that fire was closing in on their homes, or that they needed to leave. Instead, they relied on their senses, smelling the smoke, seeing the flames, sometimes even hearing the crackle.
It was the wind that woke Marta Ramos, 38, in the middle of the night. She smelled smoke and saw flames in the distance. Her family left its Santa Rosa home at 3:30 a.m. PT.
«Our neighbors were going house to house knocking on doors, telling people to get out. I don’t think the firefighters had time to even get to us,» Ramos said in Spanish.
Sonoma resident Ana Rios told a similar story. She and her husband Moises could hear sirens from the fire station near their house, but they didn’t know about the threat until 2 a.m. Monday, when Moises got a call from a co-worker saying he had been evacuated.
Rios started calling her family and got on Facebook to see what people were saying. Her children’s school called to say classes would be canceled. The winds kept howling, and Rios said she could see the mountains were glowing. Then the power went out.
By 4 a.m. Monday, all 12 members of her family — her parents, her siblings and her three children — agreed to travel to the fairgrounds in Petaluma to take shelter.
«There was no information. No one to tell you, ‘The fire is near,'» Rios said.
Santa Rosa resident Yamuna Maharjan, 28, said she received a phone alert about the fire from police. She alerted her sister, Jamuna Maharjan, 31, who lives with her in the same apartment complex. Jamuna had not received any official notifications.
«My room was filled with smoke,» Jamuna Maharjan said. «I was scared. I picked up my immigration papers and moved fast.»
Berlant, the Cal Fire spokesperson, recommended downloading the agency’s «ready for wildfire» smartphone app, which sends real-time notifications based on the user’s location. Steinberg, from the National Fire Protection Association, emphasized safety tips like having an evacuation plan and signing up for local emergency notifications.
But it’s important to remember that evacuation isn’t easy for everyone, Steinberg said.
«Evacuation in general is fraught with a lot of problems,» she said. «It kind of assumes that you’re alert, able, sober, that you have a vehicle, that you have a way to get out.»
Contributing: Jenny Espino, Redding (Calif.) Record-Searchlight, and Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY. Follow Sammy Roth on Twitter: @Sammy_Roth
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