In case of fire, please check with your local agency, call the fire information hotline (909) 383-5688, check the internet www.inciweb.org, subscribe to scanusa.com to have messages sent to your PDA, email, message pager or text capable cell phone.  Another thing to consider is that there may be a good chance power will be out at your home, and  your cordless phones will not work (I discovered this during the Old Fire)  Have at least one phone that is hardwired, so you can take advantage of the TENS (reverse 911) system.

Regarding SCANUSA.COM, in the local mountains it was used by Big Bear City Fire on the Thurman Fire, and is rolling out to San Bernardino County shortly. 

The book is easy to read at only 136 pages in length with a large glossary and several pages of “Suggested Reading.  This alone can be very valuable if you’re interested in Wildfire Damage Protection, Flood Insurance or Wildland Fire and Firefighting.  There are also two pages of web links... mostly of government websites which follow the same topics as the book references.

 

The meat of the book consists of 6 chapters.  1) Prevention 2) Preparation 3) Evacuation 4) Recovery 5) Insurance and 6) History and Background.  At first blush, this sounds like a well rounded book.  A bit heavy on preparation and prevention, but this book seems to be aimed at that topic.  Unfortunately, as you might glean from the Bibliography and Suggested Reading, the section on Recovery and Insurance is a bit lacking.

 

For example, of the 28 pages which make up the "recovery" chapter... 12 of them explain how to safely re-enter your burnt out property 1 1/2 talk about the responsibility you have to the insurance company, 2 pages on “clean-up” and “selecting a contractor”, 4 or 5 pages about preparing for debris flows, 7 pages about FEMA, SBA, the Red Cross etc, a 1/2 a page thrown in about how you should've had auto and business insurance and the last 1/2 a page is about the "emotional aftermath" following a disaster.

 

In my opinion, you can learn a lot just looking at the proportions of what is talked about in this section.  In my opinion, just the fact that she spends 7 of the 28 pages talking about FEMA, SBA and the like is a bit harmful since it perpetuates the myth that they will actually be a significant part of the recovery process.

 

After I finished the Recovery section, I was anxious to hear what she had to say about insurance.  I figured maybe she would make up for it in this section.  Unfortunately, again the focus of this book is on preparation before the fire, instead of actual help for survivors after the fire.  The majority of the insurance section should be read before a disaster hits.  Of the 21 pages in this chapter only about 3 pages actually try to explain anything that would be useful after a disaster.  The rest is about buying, selecting and pricing insurance.

 

In the end, most of this information is great for people PREPARING for a disaster.  I would definitely recommend it for people in this circumstance.  It might even be an interesting gift for a fire survivor to give as a gift to a friend or family member.  It might get the conversation rolling on your experiences and how you (and they) can better prepare for the next disaster. 

 

In fact, I think that preparing people for the inevitable disaster is the main drive of this book, and as such, it does a wonderful job.