I feel pretty dumb for reading this whole thing. I kept waiting for the part of this story where they said "yeah, maybe the first time people told us to turn around, or the second, or the third, we should have actually turned around". At least hindsight is supposed to be 20/20 :D Also, is it an "escape" if you walk toward something dangerous for longer than you should, and then turn around. D- guys. You made it, but BARELY.
Escape from Creek Fire
31–40 of 81 posts
Re: Escape from Creek Fire
#32Definitely a very risky time to be out in the wilderness, anywhere west of the Rocky Mountains. And that’s probably understating it.
It’s really something to see the entire west coast on fire right now. We live up in a forested valley in northwest Oregon, and got blanketed with smoke yesterday. Happened quickly and was the worst smoke I’ve experienced since the Camp Fire blew into Los Altos, CA, a while back. Our area of Oregon hit the top of the wildfire risk chart yesterday for the entire west coast, at “critical” — hot and dry with gusts of winds reaching 65MPH.
Happily woke up to relatively calm, clear-ish skies today.
We’ve spent a decent amount of money getting rid of brush, and trees, to create a “defensible zone” around the home. That’s one of the most impactful things that can be done to mitigate the risk — make sure flammable plants and trees are far from the house, use hardscaping (stone, gravel) around the foundation, and keep anything within 30-100’ well irrigated. Also, don’t allow leaves etc to gather under porches, gutters. Make sure vents are well screened.
The forest becomes more wilderness but we’ve been doing a bunch there as well: limbing trees up to reduce the risk of “ladder fires”, getting rid of brush, cleaning up old access trails in case a fire crew needs to come through.
Fires are pretty awesome events — experiencing them first-hand gives you a sense of scale that’s impossible to convey through pictures alone. The people in this story had quite an experience, and it’s fortunate how many people escaped that fire.
But fires are both natural, and increasing in destructiveness due to a combination of factors (including climate change). Definitely stay aware, and if you live in a wildfire zone, get moving on preparations and preventative measures.
This is the future, folks.
Re: Escape from Creek Fire
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was a heat wave, yes, but other than that not a particularly high risk of wildfires early this weekend. The wind wasn't terrible and there wasn't a Red Flag Warning issued (that's a fire weather warning). They started their hike on a long weekend, the last long weekend of the summer over here. And late August / early September is one of the best times of year for hiking in the Sierra. The bugs have died off, te…
When you say "there was a heat wave" you are referring to a weather pattern that has shattered temp records around the state. After the last heat wave and following lightnight storms which triggered fires across the state, I don't know how folks could assess that a backpacking trip to an isolated mountain area is a good idea at this point in time. Saying "September is usually a great time" is a pretty moot point. It'…
Forest fire hazard is always present at the end of the summer going into the fall in California until the first big rains. It is a Mediterranean climate and it does not rain at all from May till Oct/Nov (with much variation). They had this trip planned, would spend most of it in the high country where there are few trees and low fire hazard. People who do 8 day backpacking trips are going to have more risk tolerance than most people, and now they have a story they can blog about that makes it to the front of Hacker News. Seems like a win to me.
Re: Escape from Creek Fire
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was a heat wave, yes, but other than that not a particularly high risk of wildfires early this weekend. The wind wasn't terrible and there wasn't a Red Flag Warning issued (that's a fire weather warning). They started their hike on a long weekend, the last long weekend of the summer over here. And late August / early September is one of the best times of year for hiking in the Sierra. The bugs have died off, te…
When you say "there was a heat wave" you are referring to a weather pattern that has shattered temp records around the state. After the last heat wave and following lightnight storms which triggered fires across the state, I don't know how folks could assess that a backpacking trip to an isolated mountain area is a good idea at this point in time. Saying "September is usually a great time" is a pretty moot point. It'…
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Re: Escape from Creek Fire
#35This looks harrowing and I appreciate the person taking the time to share their experience and their lessons. Total technical aside: is this a submarine for a new version of exposure?
I had to go back and double check to find out what exposure is. Maybe? But maybe just using the platform for its use case. Maybe it’s both.
Re: Escape from Creek Fire
#36With @kepler1 on this one. This is an overly-dramatized Instagrammer's take on a pretty low-stakes situation with plenty of leeway. I'm not even particularly outdoorsy and I've got crazier stories (involving bears, pulling people out of overturned cars, etc.). I was out kayaking this weekend, and even though we were just barely 2 hours out of LA, we were acutely aware and tracking smoke/fires in the San Bernardino Mountains.
With that said, hiking into a high-risk area with already a few known fires nearby is just stupid and it could've been really bad. I'd like to hope they learned their lesson.
Re: Escape from Creek Fire
#37I appreciated this write-up. The line between "mildly interesting story with some great photos" and "we made a wrong turn or wrong decision and died" is a lot thinner than I think this post makes clear. There are very few roads and people in the High Sierras, and Red Meadows pack station is basically it when it comes to services. Surrounded by smoke, changing winds, and uncertain information, they had to try and get…
I agree. I was hoping for some lessons or takeaways though, but maybe there is so much luck and randomness involved that it’s hard to generalize. But was it really the best choice to leave an area with other cars and people and rangers around and hike through the woods, camping overnight so close to a fire? Seems crazy, although maybe the chance of getting trapped would have been higher if they didn’t do that. Glad e…
> maybe there is so much luck and randomness involved that it’s hard to generalize
They were hiking in the mountains during a heatwave with already a few fires nearby. The takeaway is "don't be stupid" but I doubt they learned their lesson, because their particular situation was pretty low-key.
Re: Escape from Creek Fire
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was a heat wave, yes, but other than that not a particularly high risk of wildfires early this weekend. The wind wasn't terrible and there wasn't a Red Flag Warning issued (that's a fire weather warning). They started their hike on a long weekend, the last long weekend of the summer over here. And late August / early September is one of the best times of year for hiking in the Sierra. The bugs have died off, te…
When you say "there was a heat wave" you are referring to a weather pattern that has shattered temp records around the state. After the last heat wave and following lightnight storms which triggered fires across the state, I don't know how folks could assess that a backpacking trip to an isolated mountain area is a good idea at this point in time. Saying "September is usually a great time" is a pretty moot point. It'…
You're right that we just experienced a heat wave that broke several daily and monthly temperature records. But this was a high pressure ridging event without much accompanying wind or thunderstorm activity. So the wildfire risk wasn't forecasted to be notably extreme, until today when the red flag warning sets in. But before you pick on that, the red flag warning is due to offshore winds, which would blow any fire and smoke away from the area these folks were hiking. The early August heatwave, in contrast, was accompanied by a decaying tropical storm had flung upper-level instability over California, causing the lightning storms you mentioned. On paper, the early August heat wave was much more dangerous. This was just a classic late-season heatwave, which usually makes for very enjoyable conditions in the high country.
On top of that, the area where these folks were planning to hike is in alpine terrain that's relatively light in tree and vegetation cover. The likelihood of the fire consuming them was extremely low. The main hazard would be smoke from a fire nearby, which is what happened. Additionally, wilderness permits for this area are very competitive, so they had to plan this trip 6 months ago and had no ability to change the time or location of the trip.
If it's your goal to assume as little risk as possible, you're right that you probably shouldn't go backpacking (or engage in any other outdoor pursuit). You probably also shouldn't be living in California. But for most people, it's a balancing act of risk versus reward, and there's not really any evidence to suggest that these folks made a foolish or dangerous decision.
Remember, hindsight is always 20/20 and it's very easy to criticize the decisions of others from the comfort of your armchair. If you'd like to do some more of that, there are many hundreds of thousands of Californians (myself included) who also headed up into the Sierra this weekend.
Re: Escape from Creek Fire
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
When you say "there was a heat wave" you are referring to a weather pattern that has shattered temp records around the state. After the last heat wave and following lightnight storms which triggered fires across the state, I don't know how folks could assess that a backpacking trip to an isolated mountain area is a good idea at this point in time. Saying "September is usually a great time" is a pretty moot point. It'…
You're right that we just experienced a heat wave that broke several daily and monthly temperature records. But this was a high pressure ridging event without much accompanying wind or thunderstorm activity. So the wildfire risk wasn't forecasted to be notably extreme, until today when the red flag warning sets in. But before you pick on that, the red flag warning is due to offshore winds, which would blow any fire a…
> So the wildfire risk wasn't forecasted to be notably extreme, until today when the red flag warning sets in.
This is absolutely untrue. Sure, the red flag warning set in today, but wildfire risk was considered to be at very high levels for (quite literally) weeks. See Tweets from way before the Creek Fire: [1][2][3] Just mild research would indicate that hiking (for days) deep in the wilderness would be a bad idea. It's just profoundly irresponsible. And, as someone that's done NorCal during this time previously, it's not comparable to prior years (except iirc maybe like 3 years ago when it was also a particularly hot summer).
> there are many hundreds of thousands of Californians (myself included) who also headed up into the Sierra this weekend.
There's a difference between doing some light camping or a day trip to the Sierras as opposed to hiking for several days deep in the wilderness during a heatwave.
> ...there's not really any evidence to suggest that these folks made a foolish or dangerous decision
This is the kind of shit that gets people killed. It was most definitely foolish and dangerous. Sometimes bad things happen to extremely experienced adventurers: flash floods, avalanches, etc. This was not that. It was a bunch of Instagrammers that wanted to "get away" without having any kind of respect for mother nature or what she can throw at you.
[1] https://twitter.com/R5_Fire_News/status/1302311140815298560/...
[2] https://twitter.com/NWSSacramento/status/1301932248313200640
[3] https://twitter.com/NWSLosAngeles/status/1301255674655956992...
Re: Escape from Creek Fire
#40Maybe I'm just being harsh, but after reading several times and figuring out what was going on, it's an instagrammer's slight inconvenience and detour being dramatized (or implied, given the photos and hour-by-hour narrative) into a life-or-death hike out, yet with "smoked salmon and mussels accompanied by biryani rice". They had a weeklong backpacking trip planned, hiked to where they thought they would start it, en…
That seems unfair. When I've been backpacking, there is not much info about anything like a sudden fire that could move randomly around you. That could easily kill you. Even with help there were 200+ people who were surrounded by fire. There weren't a lot of extra resources to help a small group.