
Escape from Creek Fire - twohey
https://www.jmeshe.co/escape-from-creek-fire
======
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.

~~~
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...](https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Devils+Postpile+National+Monument,+Devils+Postpile+Access+Road,+Mammoth+Lakes,+CA/5S30,+California/@37.5017616,-119.6322285,108796m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x809672fe7d5a369d:0x9a5f7b427fb58dc5!2m2!1d-119.0849506!2d37.6251062!1m5!1m1!1s0x80967a40179ff16f:0x66134500bee5a288!2m2!1d-119.2497242!2d37.5516002!3e0)

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.

------
kepler1
Maybe I'm just being harsh, but after reading _several_ times and figuring out
what was going on, it's an instagrammer's slight inconvenience and detour
being dramatized (or implied, given the photos and hour-by-hour narrative)
into a life-or-death hike out, yet with "smoked salmon and mussels accompanied
by biryani rice".

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.

~~~
yread
Yes, while complaining about 4000ft of elevation and 13 miles. I wonder what
was their program for the rest of the week if that sounds like a lot

~~~
arcticfox
That is a lot for most people. Obviously the upper bound on what's possible is
massively higher, but if you take a mildly fit person off the street and put
them through 4k feet & 13 miles w/ a 45 lbs pack, they'll be feeling it. An
out-of-shape person would be completely destroyed at that point.

~~~
dredmorbius
Add elevation to this. Reds Meadow is already at 7,500 ft. I believe the 4k ft
mentioned is net climb for the hike, not necessarily a peak elevation of
11,500 ft., though passes in the region certainly rise above 10,000 feet, and
peaks top 14,000 (Whitney).

With a full pack, unacclimated, making 10+ miles is a pretty good day. 13
miles outrunning a forest fire is respectable.

------
zaroth
> _One of the best decisions we made that evening was choosing to only
> bringing the best snacks and dinner option available. Which happened to be
> smoked salmon and mussels accompanied by biryani rice. This ended up being
> just the magic we needed to keep morale up as the evening came to an end._

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.

~~~
kepler1
Well, by contrast I took it to show how much of a non-event this story really
was. At least for the rich folks in this story.

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?

------
thenoblesunfish
I feel pretty dumb for reading this whole thing. I kept waiting for the part
of this story where they said "yeah, maybe the first time people told us to
turn around, or the second, or the third, we should have actually turned
around". At least _hindsight_ is supposed to be 20/20 :D Also, is it an
"escape" if you walk toward something dangerous for longer than you should,
and then turn around. D- guys. You made it, but BARELY.

~~~
URSpider94
I don’t know what you’re talking about. They literally turned around and tried
to leave the very first time someone told them to do so. The rest of the trip
was them trying various ways to get out that were blocked by fire.

~~~
grey-area
Look at the map, they were told early on where to go and went in the opposite
direction towards the fire, though the text skips over this without
explanation as to why.

~~~
ksdale
I was under the impression that they went back to the car, and the road out
appeared to go through the fire. The recommendation to go the other way would
have meant hiking out, which, even though it was what they ended up doing, was
not obviously the best choice early on?

~~~
grey-area
They could have driven the other way, the way they finally chose to drive,
parked and started to walk to Red's Meadow and the other car. I agree they
probably had reasons for the choice like not wanting to lose car 1 in the fire
or get stuck up a mountain on foot without the car if the fire reached them.
But they did get clear advice to go the other way early on and chose to ignore
it.

------
paranoidrobot
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it was known well ahead of time that there were
going to be severe temperatures and a high risk of bushfire, right?

Given that, who in their right mind decides that this is a good time to go
hiking in this area?

~~~
xiainx
There was a heat wave, yes, but other than that not a particularly high risk
of wildfires early this weekend. The wind wasn't terrible and there wasn't a
Red Flag Warning issued (that's a fire weather warning). They started their
hike on a long weekend, the last long weekend of the summer over here. And
late August / early September is one of the best times of year for hiking in
the Sierra. The bugs have died off, temperatures remain pleasant, the
thunderstorms have usually passed, and after Labor Day (the first Monday in
September) the crowds die down. In the high country, wildfire risk is usually
low as well, so smoke is really the only thing to worry about. This fire grew
remarkably fast, from 0 to 100,000 acres in about 36 hours, and happened to be
rather close to the location they chose for their trip. Sure, they should have
known that smoke from wildfires was a risk during this trip, but it's pretty
reasonable to not expect this kind of impact going into your trip. In general,
this time of year is a very good time to head into the mountains.

~~~
ihunter2839
When you say "there was a heat wave" you are referring to a weather pattern
that has shattered temp records around the state. After the last heat wave and
following lightnight storms which triggered fires across the state, I don't
know how folks could assess that a backpacking trip to an isolated mountain
area is a good idea at this point in time.

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.

~~~
xiainx
You're right that we just experienced a heat wave that broke several daily and
monthly temperature records. But this was a high pressure ridging event
without much accompanying wind or thunderstorm activity. So the wildfire risk
wasn't forecasted to be notably extreme, until today when the red flag warning
sets in. But before you pick on that, the red flag warning is due to offshore
winds, which would blow any fire and smoke away from the area these folks were
hiking. The early August heatwave, in contrast, was accompanied by a decaying
tropical storm had flung upper-level instability over California, causing the
lightning storms you mentioned. On paper, the early August heat wave was much
more dangerous. This was just a classic late-season heatwave, which usually
makes for very enjoyable conditions in the high country.

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.

~~~
dvt
> So the wildfire risk wasn't forecasted to be notably extreme, until today
> when the red flag warning sets in.

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/...](https://twitter.com/R5_Fire_News/status/1302311140815298560/photo/1)

[2]
[https://twitter.com/NWSSacramento/status/1301932248313200640](https://twitter.com/NWSSacramento/status/1301932248313200640)

[3]
[https://twitter.com/NWSLosAngeles/status/1301255674655956992...](https://twitter.com/NWSLosAngeles/status/1301255674655956992/photo/1)

~~~
xiainx
All of the points in my previous post still stand. This was not a notably
risky fire-weather watch (which is part of why this fires behavior is so
concerning), and the area where these folks were headed did not put them at
particularly elevated risk. It's fine if you would have chosen not to go, but
I probably would have made the same decision as these folks.

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." ;-)

------
gdubs
Definitely a very risky time to be out in the wilderness, anywhere west of the
Rocky Mountains. And that’s probably understating it.

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.

~~~
jasonwatkinspdx
Yeah, the air in Portland last night took a nosedive pretty fast. It wasn't
quite as bad as during the eagle creek fire, but pretty close.

------
sailfast
This looks harrowing and I appreciate the person taking the time to share
their experience and their lessons.

Total technical aside: is this a submarine for a new version of exposure?

~~~
LandR
How harrowing can it be when they were comfortable enough to stop and camp for
the night?

~~~
lucaswoj
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

------
dvt
With @kepler1 on this one. This is an overly-dramatized Instagrammer's take on
a pretty low-stakes situation with plenty of leeway. I'm not even particularly
outdoorsy and I've got crazier stories (involving bears, pulling people out of
overturned cars, etc.). I was out kayaking this weekend, and even though we
were just barely 2 hours out of LA, we were acutely aware and tracking
smoke/fires in the San Bernardino Mountains.

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.

~~~
xiainx
There are several other subthreads about this already, but there's not really
any evidence to suggest these folks made a bad or risky decision. The area
they were hiking too was above treeline, so not really at any risk of burning
in a wildfire. And the "known" wildfires nearby were either nearly completely
contained, or hundreds of miles away.

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.

------
lizzard
If you are interested in stories like this, and how people make life or death
decisions in difficult situations, I recommend Laurence Gonzales's book Deep
Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why.

~~~
lucaswoj
Yes! Also American Alpine Journal accident reports.

------
quipsdefaux
As beautiful as the smoke haze can make things, you don't mess around with
bushfire. Glad they got out. t. Australian

------
gregorymichael
props for exposure -- the platform this was published on. this was a
beautifully presented story.

------
varjag
Reminded me of a (granted, much more dramatic) August Tale in Neil Gaiman's
Calendar of Tales.

------
iandanforth
If you know someone who is about to leave on a backpacking trip in California,
please slash their tires.

