Escape from Creek Fire
jmeshe.co
jmeshe.co
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.
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.
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.
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.".
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.
> 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.
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
If you exit through Red’s Meadow, you should be safe
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.
They had a weeklong backpacking trip planned, hiked to where they thought they would start it, encountered smoke and potential fire, and had to hike back out. Leisurely. Enough to get a solid 9 hours of sleep. Doesn't quite qualify as the life-in-jeopardy kind of event that the polish and presentation of the blog make you think you're in for.
I'm a little more interested to hear about the folks who were actually in danger and barely escaped.
With a full pack, unacclimated, making 10+ miles is a pretty good day. 13 miles outrunning a forest fire is respectable.
Also, they had 7 days to complete the rest of their hike. I suspect the stats for the hike out weren't too difficult, but the cumulative effects were.
There are some good lessons in what you shouldn't do, perhaps not intended so, but still interesting.
We don't have many forest fires here in Norway, but we do have very harsh winters. Every year a family or group of people are trapped in a blizzard and die. And most of it could have been avoided by following the "Norwegain Mountain Code"[1], which I imagine is similar all over the world. Turning back before it's too late, seeking shelter, and not exhausting yourself when you realize that you're in trouble. I'd be very worried if people in my group started getting nauseous. That's when you start making those deadly mistakes.
Turning back the millisecond the danger is known.
There are certain warning signs that should not be ignored. Each group sport has them and over time you learn to follow some protocols or you have to find yourself some new friends.
For cycling in the Midwest, it's lightning strikes. There is no place to shelter and the storm can move faster than you can, so after the first strike, everyone is counting time to see if they're getting closer. If they are, you turn back for shelter, even if home is in front of you. Most of the time that's a foreshortened outing, but on one occasion we had to double back to the half-way point and wait it out. Even though that meant a lot more time out there and a longer route than we planned.
When they mentioned the black smoke and continuing forward, it made me angry. I had a sudden flash of the conversation that had us holing up, dripping wet, in a little town in the middle of nowhere. It was clear who was going to win the argument before we turned around, even though it wasn't what we wanted to hear. We all knew the rules, clearly these people don't.
(Over the years I've come to recognize how above average that group was in organization skills, but one should still aim for a solid grip of basic safety routines from inclement weather to common injuries and avoiding/treating heat stroke and exhaustion)
Then again, wildfires can move 100 miles in a day, about 10x faster than a human. Like a viral pandemic, you have to make decisions before it feels dire. It sounded like though that they got enough information early on via satellite communicator to realize it wasn't an immediate threat. I think the author is guilty of mild over-dramatization.
Exactly this. Never underestimate how important a good snack can be to improving morale in a difficult situation.
In many situations just a bit of chocolate can literally be the way to lift the mental fog of war and make it significantly easier to keep plodding through whatever stressful situation you are dealing with.
A good snack really does work magic.
If the person is sleeping 9 hours and dining on smoked salmon and mussels, is it really the "escape" from danger they made it out to be?
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.
The opportunity cost of trying to drive out was low. The fire’s eastward progress was slow so the hike out would still be there.
They had a clear way out right back from where they came in. And they took it, but made it seem much more dramatic than it was.
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.
Given that, who in their right mind decides that this is a good time to go hiking in this area?
Saying "September is usually a great time" is a pretty moot point. It's usually not well above 100 across the entire state in September.
Edited to say - I am very glad they made it out safely. If you are considering backpacking anywhere in California this summer, please remember that we are having fires in historically unprecedented locations.
Much of this trip was at 8,000 ft. Temperatures would have been about 28°F (9.6°C) lower than at sea level. From a starting base of 100°F (37.7°C), the hikers would have seen 72°F (22.2°C) temperatures --- quite comfortable. Dry air also means sweat evaporates quickly, cooling effectively.
This effect alone is a large element of the High Sierra's appeal during summertime.
https://treelinebackpacker.com/2013/05/06/calculate-temperat...
(Water freezing to boiling is 100 degrees in C and 180 degrees in F).
Though my final at-elevation result remains unchanged: 72°F / 22.2°C, a 15.5 degC drop.
https://treelinebackpacker.com/2013/05/06/calculate-temperat...
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.
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...
I'm not aware of any wilderness backpacker fatalities caused by wildfires in California. The hazards here are very different than those of avalanches or flash floods, which are actually usually easier to predict. Any experienced outdoors-person knows that. You can pick a bone with them for taking photographs, but I think their decision to continue with their hike (which started before the fire had even ignited!) was much more nuanced than "there was a heat wave." If you cancelled your trip any time there was an increased risk of something, you wouldn't get outdoors very often.
Also, there's only one 's' in the plural of "Sierra." The word "Sierras" is equivalent to "mountainses." ;-)
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.
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.
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.
Total technical aside: is this a submarine for a new version of exposure?
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.
You can complain about their photography all you want, but I suspect most experienced hikers would agree that these people didn't make any bad decisions here.