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Escape from Creek Fire

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Re: Escape from Creek Fire

#61

Post by ihunter2839 »

xiainx wrote: post #38
ihunter2839 wrote: post #25

Earlier 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…

"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." What a load of bollocks. Lived here all my life and certainly understand the risks associated with outdoor lifestyles - what makes you more "Californian" than me (or anyone else), regardless of your hobbies?

Personally, I do not agree with your assertion that this was "a classic late season heatwave". Weather patterns in my neck of the woods were severely disrupted, and we had temperatures for days that would have been unfathomable just 10 years ago. Places in California that have never burned in recorded history are ablaze. California's firefighting forces are at a record high rate of deployment, and response times have been unfortunately diminished due to the scale of their deployments. This is not normal weather. Looking at the situation and assessing that "normally" the trip would not be excessively risky in an incomplete analysis in my opinion.

Re: Escape from Creek Fire

#62

Post by ksdale »

grey-area wrote: post #55
URSpider94 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know what you’re talking about. They literally turned around and tried to leave the very first time someone told them to do so. The rest of the trip was them trying various ways to get out that were blocked by fire.

Look at the map, they were told early on where to go and went in the opposite direction towards the fire, though the text skips over this without explanation as to why.

I was under the impression that they went back to the car, and the road out appeared to go through the fire. The recommendation to go the other way would have meant hiking out, which, even though it was what they ended up doing, was not obviously the best choice early on?

Re: Escape from Creek Fire

#63

Post by davidpaulyoung »

kepler1 wrote: post #2

Maybe 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…

Correct.

Re: Escape from Creek Fire

#64

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

et-al wrote: post #59
volkl48 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could argue that the 200 people who got themselves stuck at a lake and survived via helicopter rescue didn't exactly make better choices, they largely got lucky. I don't necessarily think their decisions were terrible, but as far as reading it for lessons/critique goes: - I read a lack of knowledge with the roads making decisionmaking harder. More research on their intended route and their possible alternate rout…

Leaving a perfectly fine RAV4 and attempting to hoof 13 miles to another car is a really poor decision.

You should actually check a map before being so contemptuously judgemental. This ain't suburbia where you can just always find another route to drive out: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Devils+Postpile+National+Mon...

The RAV4 was parked at a dead end trailhead. The route out was directly through the area the fire was rapidly overtaking. They got conflicting information about the status of the road. They drove as far as seemed reasonable to them based on the information they had, then changed plans when it appeared to them they were cut off. I'd emphasize they were pretty accurate in that call btw. They left the RAV4 about 8 miles north of where people had to shelter in a freaking lake until chinook helicopters could rescue them.

Re: Escape from Creek Fire

#65

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

grey-area wrote: post #55
URSpider94 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know what you’re talking about. They literally turned around and tried to leave the very first time someone told them to do so. The rest of the trip was them trying various ways to get out that were blocked by fire.

Look at the map, they were told early on where to go and went in the opposite direction towards the fire, though the text skips over this without explanation as to why.

You should look at a map again. You've got it literally backwards.

Re: Escape from Creek Fire

#66

Post by xiainx »

ihunter2839 wrote: post #61
xiainx wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"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." What a load of bollocks. Lived here all my life and certainly understand the risks associated with outdoor lifestyles - what makes you more "Californian" than me (or anyone else), regardless of your hobbies? Per…

I didn't say anyone was more or less "Californian." I was trying to illustrate that every activity in life has some level of risk associated with it and we are all balancing those risks every day.

Temperatures during this heatwave were indeed impressive, but there weren't any other particularly remarkable weather patterns associated (like wind or thunderstorms), that was the point I was trying to make. I never said it was normal, just that it wasn't as extraordinarily risky as many in this thread are claiming.

Re: Escape from Creek Fire

#67

Post by grey-area »

ksdale wrote: post #62
grey-area wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at the map, they were told early on where to go and went in the opposite direction towards the fire, though the text skips over this without explanation as to why.

I was under the impression that they went back to the car, and the road out appeared to go through the fire. The recommendation to go the other way would have meant hiking out, which, even though it was what they ended up doing, was not obviously the best choice early on?

They could have driven the other way, the way they finally chose to drive, parked and started to walk to Red's Meadow and the other car. I agree they probably had reasons for the choice like not wanting to lose car 1 in the fire or get stuck up a mountain on foot without the car if the fire reached them. But they did get clear advice to go the other way early on and chose to ignore it.

Re: Escape from Creek Fire

#68

Post by et-al »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #64
et-al wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leaving a perfectly fine RAV4 and attempting to hoof 13 miles to another car is a really poor decision.

You should actually check a map before being so contemptuously judgemental. This ain't suburbia where you can just always find another route to drive out: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Devils+Postpile+National+Mon... The RAV4 was parked at a dead end trailhead. The route out was directly through the area the fire was rapidly overtaking. They got conflicting information about the status of the road. They drove as fa…

They did not know for certain that the route out with the RAV4 was a dead end. And the folks who were going in the opposite direction, with arguably better local information, ended up not having to shelter in a "freaking lake".

> We then learned many of the people we passed in caravans had made it out thanks to the National Forest Service and Local Officials guiding them through the scene.

Admittedly it's easy to armchair-quarterback this in hindset, but going from the known to the unknown is generally a bad idea. And there were plenty of unknown unknowns back to the other car if you wanna pull Rumsfeld into this.

Re: Escape from Creek Fire

#69

Post by grey-area »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #65
grey-area wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at the map, they were told early on where to go and went in the opposite direction towards the fire, though the text skips over this without explanation as to why.

You should look at a map again. You've got it literally backwards.

Nope.

0. They park car 1 at Red's Meadow (top right, safe) and walk in to point 1 on the map. 1. They start a walk with friends from car 2 at this trailhead 2. They notice the fire and get advice to exit via Red's Meadow. Instead they take car 2 and drive towards the fire! 3. They realise this wasn't a good idea and turn around and go to Mammoth Trail and park car 2. 4. They stop for the night heading towards Red's Meadow 5. They walk to Red's Meadow to car 1 and exit safely

Not an easy situation and I'm sure they had reasons but they did drive away from safety towards the fire after being told not to.

Re: Escape from Creek Fire

#70

Post by JimTheMan »

thenoblesunfish wrote: post #31

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…

They don't seem to have as much respect for the fire as I would have expected from say an Aussie.

Almost seems like they wanted to go South because that's the route they came in on? Even though they were heading straight for the fire, which seems like lunacy to me.

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