Oregon, Idaho, Washington and California: Over a million Acres burned

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/17/us/western-states-wildfires/index.html
Wildfires have devastated hundreds of thousands of acres across the Northwest.
One of the States that was hit the hardest was Idaho with over a quarter million acres. In the southeast corner of the state, the fire has razed more than 265,000 acres in Owyhee County. In northwest Idaho, the fire affected around 21,000 acres including the Old Greer, Kamiah Gulch, Lawyer 6 and Adams Grade. Nearly 53,000 acres burning in Clearwater Complex. A 70 year old woman died in Kamiah when escaping the flames. Mandatory Evacuations and closures are in place.
The high temperatures combined with the draught has become a cocktail for disaster regarding wildfires.
It is worth noticing that many of these areas are often specifically selected by preppers and survivalists who believe that seclusion provides a greater degree of safety and is a strategically wise decision.
http://www.kxly.com/news/north-idaho-news/nearly-53000-acres-burning-in-clearwater-complex-fire-in-idaho/34747772
Important Lessons that must be learned
1) I’ve said it before many times and I’ve written about it in my second book, “Bugging Out & Relocating”: You can’t live in your Bug Out Location. The minute you live there it is no longer an alternative place of residence for when your main place of residence is compromised because such a place just became just that when you moved to live there. The “We moved to out BOL” mentality is critically flawed and it is in moments like these when it becomes obvious why such an attitude can be dangerous. Thinking you already live in an alternative place often means little or no thought is given to a true BOL and Bug Out plan.
2) Selective risk assessment. It often happens that people only focus on the things they do enjoy and overlook the ones they would notice if they were capable of a more objective analysis. Thinking that living away from cities means you’re safe from all dangers of society while overlooking more likely threats such as these means that risk threat analysis wasn’t very accurate or objective. Floods, storms, fires, earthquakes, draughts, all potential emergencies must be taken into account and estimated how likely they are of happening again.
3) If you must go, go.
Fire can move at incredibly fast speeds due to wind. Personal possessions sure aren’t worth dying for. If mandatory evacuations are in place its probably because of a good reason. Don’t hesitate or overestimate your capacity of fighting a fire and find safe shelter. Make sure you have a bug out plan in place, with the needed Go bags and a strategy around which the entire family is organized.
FerFAL
Fernando “FerFAL” Aguirre is the author of “The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse” and “Bugging Out and Relocating: When Staying is not an Option”.