Wildfire evacuation drills prepares residents for worst-case scenario
It’s never a bad idea to be prepared for the worst, especially forest fires.
Residents from Crystal Hills, Crystal Park and the Upper Skyway of Manitou Springs participated in El Paso County’s disaster evacuation drills for 2019. Several first responders throughout the county participated in the simulation.
“With the Hayman Fire many years ago, and of course, the Waldo Canyon Fire, forest fires are on everyone’s mind,” said David McPhee , a Crystal Park resident who took part in the practice evacuation.
The Pikes Peak Regional Office of Emergency Management conducted the wildfire evacuation drill to give residents first-hand experience of what it’s like to evacuate their home when a neighborhood is threatened by wildfire. Each neighborhood that participated in the drill sits in the midst of forest and are at greater risk than other communities.
” We’ve recruited residents from those neighborhoods to evacuate, ” said Sara Fant , an Emergency Preparedness Planner in the Pikes Peak Region. ” They will receive emergency notification messages. Then they have to pack up all their stuff, their pets, and then they come here to the shelter. ”
Participants ultimately retreated to Holmes Middle School. There, they received lunch, a briefing from local emergency responders, and had the opportunity to attend an information fair. Agencies such as The Salvation Army, Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region, Wildfire Mitigation, The Independence Center, and the Pikes Peak Regional Office of Emergency Management were on hand for a brief lecture.
For Crystal Park residents, their simulation differed. There is only one road running through the neighborhood, and in the drill the road was ” blocked off, ” forcing people to flee to the Crystal Park Volunteer Fire Department.
Not only is this good practice for the people who live there, but the first responders as well.
” [The first responders] don’t often have the opportunity to practice while interacting with the public, ” said Fant . ” It’s cool for them to be able to door-knock, and actually move through the process of evacuating a neighborhood. The big emphasis is just preparedness and education. ”
That’s something McPhee is keeping in mind. “We are working on that now, ” said McPhee . ” We sat down last year and wrote down a list of things that if we had 20 minutes to evacuate, what would we take.”
Compared to years past, the risk of wildfire is lower, thanks to this past spring’s precipitation. However, experts say the preparations are just as vital.
“Wildfires can happen anytime of the year, ” said Fant . ” People may say, ‘Oh, it rained last week so there can’t be a wildfire this week.’ That’s not at all true. ”
Nearly 100 homes participated in the evacuation simulation. To find out more on how to be prepared for the worst, you can do so here.
