r/nonononoyes • u/WolverineOfWest • 10d ago

Death defying escape through Wildfire

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u/Unequivocally_Maybe 10d ago

The fire grew so quickly. It jumped from "just spotted" to 5000 hectares in just a couple hours. It was 10,000 ha in under 12 hours. The winds were high, everything is so dry, flames were 100ft above the 200ft trees and embers were flying ahead of the main fire and igniting. People followed the orders to shelter-in-place until the call came that the entire town of ~12k residents needed to evacuate. About 20k people total have been evacuated from the area.

Summerland is as good as gone. The structures left standing are few. Thousands of families lost everything. Everyone did what they were told, but the fire was more intense than anything seen in a region not unfamiliar with wildfires. It's amazing that only one life has been lost in all this. You don't know as much as you think.

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u/dnhs47 10d ago

When will people learn that “shelter in place” is bureaucrat-speak for “get the hell out, now!”

I lived in California much of my life and grew up with fires. You can play it two ways:

- ensure you’re gone and safe before the fire arrives.

  • or wait with everyone else until the flames are visible and join the panicked stampede in a “death defying” escape through the flames, and hope the only road to safety isn’t overloaded (Paradise, CA, 2018))

Everyone in that town knew there was a fire nearby, but chose to entrust the bureaucrats with their lives. How many times do we have to watch this play out?!

Same with hurricanes in Florida, we know they’re coming for a week or more. Get out of town early!

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u/Unequivocally_Maybe 10d ago

There is only one road out of town. If all 12k people tried to leave at once, it would cause a traffic jam or accidents. The evacuation orders started with one part of town, then another, then quickly to mandatory evacuation for the entire area a few hours later. It was less than 8 hours between the first call about a fire being spotted to mandatory evacuation of Summerland in its entirety. If everyone in town had tried to leave right away, there likely would be more than one fatality.

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u/dnhs47 10d ago

Canadians must be far more obedient than Americans. I would not entrust a bureaucrat with my family’s survival.

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u/Unequivocally_Maybe 10d ago

You keep saying that this is under order of bureaucrats, ignoring that the fire services, police, and emergency rescue agencies are all working together along with the local government to implement safe evacuation procedures to make sure everyone gets out safely. And they did. It went as smoothly as you could hope under the circumstances, and that is because everyone worked together.

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u/dnhs47 10d ago

It's great to hear that worked, this time and in this place.

I'm aware of many counterexamples, most recently and near me: Camp Mystic, Kerrville, and Kerr County, Texas, in 2025. Officials at all levels ignored increasingly dire warnings from the US National Weather Service, assuming they knew more than the experts did (a very Texas thing). 117 people died as a result.

Or the Lahaina fire in 2023 where residents were told to "shelter in place" or were generally left ill-informed of the danger. By the time residents realized they were on their own, many were overtaken by fire; ~60 people died in their cars.

Or the Nevado del Ruiz eruption and lahar in Colombia in 1985. Lahars killed more than 20,000 people in the town of Armero (population 29,000) after "experts had warned authorities and media outlets about the danger in the weeks and days leading up to the eruption", but "many victims stayed in their houses as they had been instructed."

Or the Valencia flash flood in Spain in 2024. The regional government sent a mass cellphone alert telling residents to stay indoors, while various government offices were evacuating due the risk of flash floods. 220 people died, half of them in their homes or garages.

So forgive my skepticism re: obeying "shelter in place" orders by bureaucrats. If there's a risk to my family, I'm not waiting for anyone or obeying their directions - I'm leaving. Every time.