The Fire Is Moving. Are You Ready to Move?
- 1 day ago
- 9 min read
What the Bug and Stallion Fires are reminding us about being prepared — before the evacuation order comes.
As I write this, thousands of our neighbors in northern Washoe County have been told to leave their homes because of the Bug/Fred Mountain and Stallion fires. Thousands more are watching evacuation maps, checking the wind, smelling the smoke and wondering whether their neighborhood will be next. The Bug and Fred Mountain fires have merged. The Stallion Fire has grown dramatically. Evacuation zones have expanded repeatedly.
For many people in the Reno area, this isn't theoretical anymore.
And neither is preparedness.
I've written about emergency preparedness several times over the years — go-bags, evacuation grab lists, backup power, first aid, medications and important legal documents. But watching another major wildfire unfold practically in our backyard makes me think it's time to put all of those pieces together in one place.
Because the most important time to prepare for an evacuation isn't when someone knocks on your door and says GO NOW.
It's now.
Preparedness isn't about becoming a "prepper"
Let's get that out of the way first.
You don't need a bunker, six months of freeze-dried food or a garage full of survival gear. Preparedness simply means thinking through a few decisions before you're frightened, hurried and trying to make them under pressure.
Years ago I wrote:
Disasters don't wait.
They still don't.
Wildfires are particularly unforgiving because conditions can change extraordinarily quickly. Wind shifts. Roads close. Electricity goes out. Cell service becomes overloaded. An evacuation warning becomes an evacuation order.
The goal isn't to prepare for every imaginable catastrophe.
The goal is to buy yourself something incredibly valuable:
time.
And perhaps even more importantly, to reduce the number of decisions you'll have to make when time is running out.
Start with the question nobody likes to ask
Imagine someone tells you: You have 15 minutes to leave your house.
What do you take? Not what would you like to take.
What do you need to take?
That's why I'm such a fan of an emergency grab list.
A go-bag is wonderful. But not everything you need can live permanently in a backpack by the door. Your medications may be in the bathroom. Your phone is probably beside you. Your wallet and keys may be somewhere else. The dog has a leash. The cat has a carrier. Your laptop may be plugged in across the house.
And then there are those few things that simply can't be replaced.
Trying to remember all of that while you're frightened is a lousy emergency plan.
Write it down.
My own grab-list approach divides things according to the amount of time available.
If I have only 15 minutes, it's essentials: people, pets, medications, identification and critical documents, wallet, keys, phones, emergency bags.
If I have 30 minutes, I can add clothing, chargers, electronics and perhaps a few small sentimental things.
If I truly have an hour, I can think about additional food and water, bedding, clothing, hard drives and other belongings.
But here's the important part: If officials tell you to leave, the list ends. You leave.
Things can be replaced. You can't.
Your phone is emergency equipment now
We sometimes forget how many separate emergency tools have been consolidated into the little rectangle we carry around all day.
Your phone is your:
telephone
evacuation map
emergency-alert receiver
weather source
flashlight
camera
contact list
news source
navigation system
connection to family and friends.
Until the battery dies.
I recently updated my post about emergency charging after the June 2026 Reno-area blackout that affected tens of thousands of NV Energy customers. That experience reinforced something pretty simple:
A power bank isn't much use if it's sitting in a drawer at 10 percent.
Keep one charged and accessible.
I've used this electronics go-bag more times than I can count. It's what I grab when my husband has been hospitalized, for example. It allowed me to keep his phone and tablet charged ... and mine of course while I'm staying with him.
Better yet, have more than one way to produce power. A charged portable battery bank is probably the easiest short-term solution. A larger portable power station can provide considerably more capacity. A solar/hand-crank emergency radio/charger offers another option when conventional power isn't available.
And don't forget your car. Keep charging cables in it.
One habit costs absolutely nothing: when dangerous fire weather, high winds or another emergency threatens, charge everything.
Phones. Tablets. Battery banks. Rechargeable flashlights. Portable power stations.
Don't wait for the electricity to go out.
Put medications near the top of the list
This one becomes increasingly important as we get older.
If you take prescription medications every day, don't assume you'll simply be able to replace them tomorrow.
An evacuation could mean one night away from home.
Or several.
Your pharmacy could be inaccessible. Roads could be closed. Power could be out. You could end up staying much farther from home than you expected.
Your evacuation preparations should include your medications, along with a current medication list containing the drug names, dosages and prescribing physicians.
If you use essential medical equipment — hearing aids, mobility equipment, oxygen equipment, a CPAP or another powered medical device — think through what you'll need to operate it away from home and what happens if electricity isn't available.
And don't forget the very ordinary first-aid kit.
I've written before about keeping one in the house and in the car and periodically checking the contents and expiration dates. Emergency gear that hasn't been looked at for five years isn't necessarily emergency gear anymore.
Knowledge matters, too.
You don't need to become a paramedic. But knowing basic first aid, CPR and how to control serious bleeding are skills worth having long before you need them.
The papers you don't want to think about matter, too
Here's another category we tend to postpone because it isn't much fun:
the legal stuff.
Identification.
Insurance information.
Property records.
Advance directives.
Powers of attorney.
Wills and trusts.
Medical information.
Contact information.
The point isn't necessarily to stuff your entire filing cabinet into the car.
It's to make sure critical information exists somewhere you — or someone you trust — can actually get to it.
Some documents can be kept in a fire-resistant portable box. Some can be scanned and securely stored digitally. Copies can be kept with a trusted family member.
Whatever system you use, ask yourself this:
If my house were inaccessible tonight, could I get the documents and information I'd need tomorrow?
And here's the second question people often forget:
Could someone else find them if I couldn't?
That's particularly important for advance directives and powers of attorney. The beautifully organized document nobody can locate isn't terribly helpful during an emergency.
Review these things periodically, too. People move. Relationships change. Executors and agents age. Phone numbers change. Laws change.
Preparedness isn't something you finish.
It's something you maintain.
Don't forget the pets
Anyone who has ever tried to convince a frightened cat to enter a carrier knows why this deserves its own section.
Have carriers accessible.
Know where the leashes are.
Have some food ready to grab.
Keep vaccination and veterinary information available.
And if you have horses, livestock or other large animals, your evacuation planning needs to begin much earlier. Moving large animals takes time, trailers and someplace to take them. During the current fires, the Reno-Sparks Livestock Events Center has been used to accommodate evacuated large animals.
Waiting until flames are visible isn't a plan.
Your car is part of the evacuation kit
Keep fuel in it. Keep the EV charged to 80%.
That's another remarkably simple preparedness step.
During periods of extreme fire danger, I wouldn't make a habit of letting the tank or battery hover near empty. An evacuation isn't the time to discover that you have 22 miles of range left while hundreds of your neighbors are heading toward the same gas stations.
Put a small emergency kit in the vehicle, too.
Water.
A little food.
First aid.
Charging cables.
A flashlight.
A blanket.
Copies of important contact information.
An N95 mask can also be useful when wildfire smoke is affecting air quality.
And know more than one way out of your neighborhood.
The route you normally use may not be the route available during a fire.
Don't depend on a single source of information
Emergencies are magnets for rumors.
Someone posts something on Facebook. Somebody else repeats something they heard from a neighbor who heard it from someone else.
Meanwhile, conditions really are changing rapidly.
Bookmark reliable emergency information before you need it. Sign up for local emergency alerts. Know where to find evacuation maps. Have a battery-powered or hand-crank radio capable of receiving NOAA weather broadcasts.
Two resources worth bookmarking if you live in wildfire country are:
Watch Duty — Watch Duty Wildfire Maps & Alerts
Watch Duty is a nonprofit service providing real-time wildfire maps, verified incident updates, evacuation information, fire perimeters, satellite hotspots, weather information and other useful tools. You can use it on the web or download the app and set notifications for areas important to you.
Perimeter Map — Perimeter Map
Perimeter Map is another useful map-based resource for following wildfire activity and getting a visual sense of where an incident is in relation to your home, neighborhood or evacuation route.
I keep resources like these bookmarked because during an emergency I don't want to waste time trying to remember where I saw something.
But there's an important distinction:
Situational-awareness tools supplement official emergency notifications. They don't replace them.
During a wildfire, pay attention to evacuation instructions from the authorities responsible for your area. Fire perimeters and map information can also lag behind what is actually happening on the ground. Don't look at a map and decide that because the fire appears several miles away you have plenty of time.
Conditions change.
Wind changes.
Fire behavior changes.
And if your zone changes to GO NOW, go.
Don't wait to see flames.
Don't wait until everybody else on your street leaves.
Don't assume somebody will come knock on your door.
Check on your neighbors
Preparedness isn't entirely an individual exercise.
Who lives near you?
Is there an older neighbor living alone?
Someone who doesn't drive?
Someone with mobility limitations?
A neighbor with animals who might need help?
Someone who may not receive smartphone alerts?
We spend a lot of time talking about resilient infrastructure. But communities have infrastructure, too.
It's us.
Knowing who might need a phone call or a knock on the door can make an enormous difference.
Just don't put yourself in danger or delay your own evacuation to do it.
Do five things tonight
If all of this sounds overwhelming, don't turn preparedness into another project you'll start "someday."
Start small.
Tonight:
Write your 15-minute grab list.
Charge your phone and portable battery banks.
Put your medications and critical medical information where you can grab them quickly.
Gather or make digital copies of your most important documents.
Talk with the people in your household about where you'll go and how you'll reconnect if you're separated.
That's it.
You've just become considerably more prepared than you were this morning.
Tomorrow you can improve the go-bag.
Next weekend you can check the first-aid kit.
Later you can scan documents, review insurance coverage and improve your backup-power setup.
Preparedness doesn't have to happen all at once.
It just has to happen before you need it.
One final thought from here in Reno
Living in the West means living with wildfire.
We've watched fires race across our mountains and valleys before. We've lived through smoke that turned the sky strange colors. We've watched friends and family evacuate. We've experienced deliberate power shutoffs and unexpected outages.
And now we're watching it happen again.
The Bug/Fred Mountain and Stallion fires are reminders that an emergency doesn't make an appointment.
We cannot eliminate every risk.
We cannot control the wind.
We cannot guarantee that a wildfire won't come toward our neighborhood.
But we can control whether the medications are ready.
Whether the dog carrier can be found.
Whether the phone is charged.
Whether the documents are accessible.
Whether the car has fuel.
Whether we know where we're going.
Whether the people we love know the plan.
Preparedness isn't fear.
It's giving yourself options while you still have time to choose them.
Stay safe, Reno.
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