Wildfire Wednesdays #98: Evacuation Planning

Hi Fireshed Community,

Evacuation is complex and difficult to plan for. It depends greatly on the type of emergency, or the duration of the emergency, and the needs of the community being evacuated. Fire practitioners, emergency managers, and local community organizations across the country work hard to include flexible evacuation and safety plans into their work each day.

One thing about evacuation is for sure — the more we work within our communities before an incident to plan and communicate about evacuation, the better our response will be. This involves personal wildfire evacuation planning as well as community-level planning.

With this in mind, this week our Wildfire Wednesdays newsletter will focus on both personal evacuation planning as well as planning guides that support community-level planning. We pull in materials from the National Fire Adapted Communities network (thank you!) that we hope will support New Mexico communities in preparing for 2023 and beyond.

Stay safe,

Gabe

Personal Evacuation Planning

For individual residents and homeowners wanting to consider their personal wildfire evacuation plan, the Ready, Set, Go! (en español) personal action guide is a great place to start. This guide helps residents be Ready with preparedness understanding, be Set with situational awareness when fire threatens, and to Go, acting early when a wildfire starts.

The Ready, Set, Go! guide is designed to be prepared well in advance of a wildfire and includes check lists and emergency supplies lists to support communication within your household.

There is a special section about ranches and farms that will help you consider how to evacuate livestock, protect valuable equipment, and more. Animal evacuation takes careful planning and communication to those that live around you. Start these conversations early and check-in about them annually to make sure you have a clear plan.

En Español


Community-Level Evacuation Planning

If you are looking for a resource to help you or your community work through the evacuation planning process, this FREE, 2020 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) guide is a great start.

Planning Considerations: Evacuation and Shelter-in-Place Guidance for State, Local, Tribal and Territorial Partners.

This guide takes a whole-community approach, provides an overview of key concepts and critical considerations and dives into the planning process itself. 

Communication Resources

Communication Planning

Evacuation and warning wireless emergency alert template in Spanish from California.

If you are looking for tips and tools to help you communicate more effectively during evacuation, there are several great resources available to you: 

  • The Department of Homeland Security document, Best Practices in Wireless Emergency Alerts, contains guidance for establishing wireless emergency alerts as well as information on setting up a training and drilling program.

  • FEMA also has a toolkit available for those who routinely issue alerts and warnings. The Alerts, Warnings, and Notifications Program Planning Toolkit contains a step-by-step, FREE, web-based app that helps you create a customized plan for alerts and warnings. Users can input their own information, guided by prompts and informed by many of the available resources, and then save a Microsoft Word document that can be further edited and refined.

  • The Federal Communications Commission website on multilingual alerting contains general guidance for issuing alerts and warnings in multiple languages. Some states, such as California, have created evacuation alert and warning templates in multiple languages.

Communication Materials for Livestock and Animals

Example of stickers and placards for your home from the ASPCA.

Communication with those residents in rural areas where animals and livestock is a consideration is unique and requires different messaging. Here a few resources specific to that community:  

Modeling and Tools

The Resilience Analysis and Planning Tool Storymap

Our ability to model behavior, traffic flow and evacuation vulnerability continues to increase.  Several tools are available to help communities plan. 

Evacuation Planning for Access and Functional Needs

There is no perfect blueprint for evacuating communities ahead of a wildfire. Even so, there are inclusive planning resources for evacuations to go as smoothly as possible for people with many different needs.

FEMA has a guide specifically for integrating functional needs into general population shelters, and NFPA’s evacuation guide for people with disabilities breaks down planning considerations for specific needs. FAC Net held a recent webinar on how to engage people with access and functional needs in emergencies, covering communication tools and shelter accommodations. Emergency Medical Services for Children (EMSC) has a guide specifically about supporting kids with special needs during a disaster (available in multiple languages).

Gabriel Kohler

The GSFFC is a coalition of public and private organizations. The GSFFC is not a subdivision of the State of New Mexico, as defined in the state’s Open Meetings Act, §§ 10-15-1 to 10-15-4 NMSA 1978. Although federal agencies participate in the GSFFC, the Coalition is not a federal advisory board and was not created by a federal agency, as defined by the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), 5.U.S.C. app. 2, §§ 1 to 16 (2012). The GSFFC operates informally to support its partners, and is not incorporated as a non-profit, 501(C)(3), partnership, or other legal status.