[davidu]

I 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 information through very low bandwidth, high latency satellite text systems (I have an InReach, and it's great, but leaves a lot to be desired).

I'm impressed with their retelling of the story and am glad they made it out safe.

[cactus2093]

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 everyone seemed to get out out ok though.

[volkl48]

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 routes would have made things easier. (And the "downed bridge" is a planned bridge replacement with a published detour. That shouldn't have been a surprise to begin with). Lots of people do tons of research on the trails, alternates, have detailed maps, and so on, but don't do the same amount with their access routes.

- They should have had someone on watch in shifts in the overnight. If it comes that way and you're going to have a chance, it isn't going to be when the first moment you realize something's gotten worse is by waking up choking, in an inferno, or by not waking up at all.

- They should have gotten moving earlier. A few hours rest to recover isn't entirely ridiculous if they were unable to continue/couldn't follow the trail at night, but you don't need 9 hours of sleep and a leisurely 2 hour morning after waking up. Especially not when when you say "The smoke felt closer than the day before" for conditions.

[gpm]

> They should have had someone on watch in shifts in the overnight

I don't think I agree with this.

It improves your very low chance of survival if the fire catches up with you during the night, slightly. But you're mostly screwed anyways. Forest fires tend to move faster than humans, especially in the dark. It means you are less effective in the morning and will likely increase the amount of time it takes to get out of there.

I'd elect for "we all sleep, we wake up slightly before first light to pack up and eat, we leave at first light.".

[et-al]

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

[jasonwatkinspdx]

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.

[et-al]

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.

[lucaswoj]

The information we had to go on was

1) a single lat/lon coordinate of the fire about 2 mi from the road

2) the plume of smoke suggesting the fire was many miles side

3) cars racing both towards and away from the fire

4) rumors that people were trapped somewhere ahead

5) advice from a ranger that hiking to Red’s Meadow should be safe

[grey-area]

The takeaway could be listen to the ranger. They were told to go to Red's Meadow early on and ignored the advice for some reason and headed towards the fire.

If you exit through Red’s Meadow, you should be safe

[sandworm101]

>> some lessons or takeaways though

The lesson to learn is often "just don't go". Fire season in california is becoming like avalanche season in places like BC. When the danger level is high, the only real answer is to avoid the area altogether. You check the prevailing conditions (the posted avalanche/fire danger) and if you choose to go you do periodic spot-checks on the terrain you are walking over. If the underbrush is too dry, the temperature rises, you see/hear thunderstorms, or you get reports of fires in similar areas, it is time to evac. Waiting until you see smoke is not good.

[dvt]

> 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.

[GaryNumanVevo]

This is a pretty uncharitable opinion. The Creek Fire exploded to 130K acres in a couple days, definitely not typical.

[distrill]

It's unfortunately becoming more typical.