# Had to bug out.



## Wellrounded (Sep 25, 2011)

Nothing like one of your biggest fears becoming reality to teach you a few lessons! Firstly myself and my family are all safe and our farm is fine. 

Yesterday a bushfire swept across the forest the north of us, missed our back fence line by 100 yards or so. I was home alone at the time (first time for over a year!) and it took me over an hour to contact the rest of my family (problems with mobile phone reception). I wasn't in immediate danger at this point as the fire was moving from west to east and there would have to be a significant wind change to put me in the direct path of the fire. 
We decided to bug out as a wind change would bring the fire through the forest toward our house. This was at approx. 3:30pm. At 5:50pm we recieved a text warning from the fire service, letting us know there was a fire and we could be in danger, 2 hours and 20 minutes after we had evacuated. No real suprises there, we would never rely on a gov warning system, I keep an eye on the internet on high fire danger days (locals will post on facebook if their hubby/boyfriend or father is out fighting a fire) as that is the earliest warning I'll get. I could see the fire from my back garden 3 hours before I got any official warning! 

We definately need to refine our bug out. 
I need to have a better way to get notice out to others if I have no mobile service (I ended up contacting my youngest daughter via the internet who called my DH). 
Although the gov were useless we had a farmer from 15 miles away come out and check on us (he said he knew no one would let us know what was going on!) and offer help. This morning we had a call from the farmer we buy our hay from offering us hay for our stock if we'd lost pasture during the fire. I love my community!!!!
I wasn't concerned about our stuff or our house, just the family and the livestock. I was already working out what to do if we lost everything as we were leaving. I was worried about how this would impact the rest of my family especially if we lost animals. 
We are back home now, the fire is still burning and not completely under control but much further north. We don't know how much damage has been done (at least 7000 acres of pasture burnt) at this point but there have been no reports of injuries. I know some have lost livestock. We'll wait to find out what we can do to help over the next few days.


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## dlharris (Apr 3, 2011)

So glad you and yours are okay. How scary! Just shows we are always learning..... I hope to find a community like you live in! 

:jealous


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## DJgang (Apr 10, 2011)

Goodness, scary. Glad everyone is safe. You do bring up things everyone needs to think about. When we had tornadoes come through, it hit so many cell phone towers, no one's service would work. It's a horrible feeling when you can't talk to family members. 

Everyone is in my prayers.


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## Szumi (Mar 10, 2012)

I'm glad the fire missed you. I lost the siding on one side of the garage and a storage building in 10 minutes this summer. Didn't lose the garage or the house but another 10 minutes could have wiped me out.

Thank you volunteer firemen and firewomen!

Szumi


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## seanallen (Nov 13, 2012)

Ok. Safe n sound. Thank God. 
Now: what refinements to the ol B. O. B. and why?


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## jsriley5 (Sep 22, 2012)

Keep us aprised of the lessons learned and how you plan to solve issues we can all benefit from your experience. Glad you sufered no un sustainable losses. Sounds like you really do have a great communty treasure it they are getting rare. To have such offers you must be the kind of neighbors everyone like to have kudos to you. Have you looked around and re prioritized anything that you would have been heart broken to have lost? Pictures? Documents? Would think walking back into your house certain things would kinda stand out prctically glowing with their importance and how much you'd have hated to lose em. I know from experience coming home to inventory to see what was missing after a break in. Some things just jump out and grab you and say you need to protect me better.


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## zombieresponder (Aug 20, 2012)

Have you already plowed a decent firebreak around your place? From what I understand, a set of roof mounted mist type sprinklers can really impede a fire's ability to take a structure.


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

Glad you and yours are safe. 

Have you ever considered Ham Radios for communications? We use them here all the time and can get several people mobilized to try contacting family members by phone. We also have a scanner on hand to moniter emergency channels when there's a fire within 100 miles of us. We can listen in on direct communications between fire/police and other emergency personel. You get good information a lot faster that way!

I was in your country once many years ago (around 1974). It was a nice place with good people.


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## tsrwivey (Dec 31, 2010)

So glad ya'll are safe! We've been in a similar situation & it's definitely stressful. We'd love to hear what worked, what didn't & what changes you will make based on this experience when you get a chance.


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## biobacon (Aug 20, 2012)

Glad you are safe.


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## Wellrounded (Sep 25, 2011)

Thanks everyone for your well wishes. I'll add to this in a day or two and let everyone know what we're doing, we're still going to be busy for a few days. Fire broke out again at lunch time and is bad due north of us if the wind shifts we will have to bug out again.


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## mma800 (May 7, 2012)

Please be safe! I am praying for your family!


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## Viking (Mar 16, 2009)

God be with you. During the summer months here where we live there is a constant danger of forest fires, we live on what's called a rural / forest interface and the local forest service has a program to make this interface safer. We as home and land owners can release ourselves from responsibility of forest fires by reducing fuels that would feed a fire. I keep all the weeds down in an over 50' radius around our home, if we didn't have a metal roof that would be a 100' radius. We keep firewood and other fuels 50' from our home as well. All trees have their lower limbs trimmed according to maturity of the trees, this way grass or weed fires will not cause the trees to catch fire so easily. I actually make sure I cut down as many weeds and grasses as I'm able, especially on our lower field where it's possible that a cigarette thrown from a vehicle could start a fire. Springtime around here is what I call a tsunami of work and at 70 years of age I keep telling my wife she better make sure she keeps me in the best of health so we can live here for the rest of our lives.


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## Country Living (Dec 15, 2009)

I have the same question as zombieresponder - do you have a good firebreak plowed around your property and within your property? 

As most of you know Texas was on fire a few years ago. We worked with the Texas Forest Service several years ago in order to identify weaknesses in our fire mitigation plan and, as a result, we put in a second firebreak around the hay field (we already had one on the property perimeter) as well as a third one 60' from the buildings. 

We have the same problem as wellrounded - our first notice of a fire is when we see or smell the smoke and it just doesn't have to be that way. NOAA will announce a wildfire if the TFS/County officials will notify them to broadcast the message. And it's free. :brickwall:


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## Wellrounded (Sep 25, 2011)

Still home, didn't have to leave again... 
Going to be busy again today (fire is pretty much under control but wind is due to shift after lunch) but I can answer a few things briefly.

Fire breaks etc - We live on the edge of a large tract of forest, very dry. We keep pigs in paddocks all around our homestead, no need to plough. There is no combustable material in these paddocks they are 70 yards wide. We have a clear yard and sprinkler systems to wet the ground. Metal roof and walls, only small windows to the north (our worst danger direction). BUT we are building an extention at the moment and it makes some areas of the house very vulnerable. Even though we have all this in place (and more besides) we will always bug out, this is dry country and fires become wild fires in an instant here. People with the best fire precautions die trying to fight fires in this country. 

Bugging out - We only bugged out to a secure location not into town for the first 4 hours, we then went into town for the night. We need more camping gear in the bug out tubs. We need to have 2 CB radios each, one tuned to the fire channel and one for our farm channel, at times we were out of contact with each other, only for a few minutes and within yelling distance but it wasn't ideal. Our dogs wouldn't travel together on that day (fine most of the time) maybe due to stress, we had to use the horse float for the livestock guardian dogs and were lucky it was good to go, it'll remain in the ready to go position from now on. 
Thanks again for your concern. Nice to be a part of such a great community.


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## zombieresponder (Aug 20, 2012)

Hope everything turns out well for you. Also happy to hear that your property _should_ be fairly well insulated against the fire.


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## eddy_dvyvan (May 8, 2012)

G'day wellrounded,

Have you considered buying a firepump and activly defending?. The only properties that were spared down here during the last fires were the ones that were defended by the residents. More people die from leaving too late or not being active and trying to hide in bathtubs.


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## Wellrounded (Sep 25, 2011)

Everything has settled down here now, an inch of rain last night. Been a busy week and we'll spend the next few weeks reviewing what we need to do... Eddy_dvyvan we do have firepumps and we would defend in a few situations but because of our location bugging out is prefered. If we had to stay we do have what we need to defend.


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## Fn/Form (Nov 6, 2008)

Being single I assume I'm the only one loading up/loading out. It's something I need to bring up to our family group. Lists are absolutely necessary--but so is making it do-able by a pregnant mother.

Thanks for the heads up, glad y'all came out OK.


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