by Thomas (K4SWL)
I want to start by saying: if you’ve tried contacting me by email lately, you’ve probably noticed I’m far behind. This winter and spring were always going to be busy, but Hurricane Helene increased everything by orders of magnitude. I’m struggling to keep up with correspondence, fitting in POTA activations, and finding free time. That said, I’m looking forward to taking a much-needed break for Four Days in May and Hamvention in a couple of weeks.
But that’s not the reason for this post. I wanted to share a little drama from our community this past week.
Forest Fire
April brought extremely dry weather to western North Carolina. In fact, much of this year we’ve been battling wildfires. Many of you have reached out after seeing the news — thank you. Until last week, the fires had stayed in other parts of our county or neighboring ones. Still, conditions have been perfect for fire: dry air, gusty winds, and an incredible amount of tree debris left behind after Helene.
On Monday, we drove to town to drop our daughters off at a class and run errands. Around 2:45 PM, just as I was about to pick them up, a neighbor called to tell me a wildfire had broken out on our road — just over a mile from our house. He didn’t have many details, only that firefighters were already on the scene thanks to an early alert from another neighbor.
Most of the family was with me, but Hazel, our sweet dog, was still at home. We raced back, hoping our road wouldn’t be closed.
From about 12 miles away on Interstate 40, we could already see plumes of smoke rising from our valley. It was a concerning sight. We also reached out to neighbors — many of whom were at home — to check in and share updates.
Fortunately, when we reached our road, one lane was still open for local traffic. Firefighters told us there were no immediate evacuation orders, but we needed to be ready.
Back at the house, we found Hazel peacefully sleeping through all the excitement — just as she did during Hurricane Helene. From the windows, we could clearly see smoke billowing from the nearby mountain.
Stage 1 Packing
Since January, my wife and I had discussed what we’d pack if a wildfire threatened. We spent about 15 minutes gathering:
- Essential items: IDs, passports (most critical documents are already in a safety deposit box)
- Hazel’s essentials
- Laptops, tablets, phones, and backup drives
- Important keepsakes like photos and our wedding certificate
- My wife’s paintings
- Clothes, toiletries, and medications for a few days
We were already in touch with Vlado (N3CZ). If we had to evacuate, we planned to go to his house instead of a hotel, so we packed accordingly.
There was no panic. Thanks to GMRS radios, we could share real-time updates with neighbors. (Side note: soon, our fire department will also be tied into our community GMRS system!)
Stage 2 Packing
After the essentials, we prepared “nice-to-have” items: radios, antennas, batteries, sentimental gear, and other things that would be difficult to replace. I also installed our Thule cargo box on the Subaru for extra space.
We packed essentials into the car and staged the rest inside for quick loading if needed.
Containment
By 6:00 PM, we heard the fire was about 50% contained — thanks to the quick, coordinated work of six or seven fire departments and the Forest Service, who were using Chinooks to drop water and bulldozing a fire break.
By 11:00 PM, the fire was fully contained, burning less than 20 acres in total. Rain moved into the area by 6:00 the next morning — our first real rain in ages — and thankfully continued for much of the week.
Lessons Learned
Western North Carolina usually has boring, predictable weather. Wildfires have always been extremely rare here — we’re in a humid subtropical and temperate zone, after all.
We are profoundly grateful to the firefighters and Forest Service who jumped on this fire early. Their swift action made all the difference. No homes were lost, and no personal property was damaged.
We were also pleased with how calmly and efficiently we packed. Our investment in GMRS radios really paid off, too — it kept communication open when it mattered most.
As for the cause of the fire? Frustratingly, it was completely preventable. A homeowner had burned brush and left it unattended for an extended time. When they returned, it had already spread into the forest. Hopefully, they learned a hard lesson (and will likely face a significant fine).
All’s well that ends well.
Radio Side Note
I’ve often wondered which radios I’d grab if I ever had to evacuate. Turns out, when it came time to act, there was no philosophical debate — I simply packed favorites, sentimental rigs, and anything difficult to replace.
After essentials were secured, I quickly packed radios into my favorite field backpacks. Fortunately, little QRP radios are easy to grab, and my shack was already organized.
Here’s what I packed:
- All Elecraft radios (I also staged the KXPA100, but didn’t end up needing to unhook it)
- All Mountain Toppers (MTR-3Bs and MTR-5B)
- All Pennteks (TR-45L, TR-45L Skinny, and TR-35)
- CFT1
- Mission RGO One
- Ten-Tec Argonaut VI
I also grabbed a few batteries and accessories like my RigExpert analyzer. Everything fit easily into my field packs — the vintage Swiss rucksack had impressive capacity!
You might wonder why I didn’t pack radios like my Yaesu FT-818ND, which I also love. I focused mainly on rarer, harder-to-replace gear. There are many more FT-817s and FT-818s floating around than there are Elecraft KX1s, Pennteks, Mountain Toppers, and Mission RGO Ones combined.
Moving Forward
We learned a lot. Here’s what we’ll do differently next time:
- Prepare an empty storage box large enough to quickly hold essentials like laptops, backup drives, documents, and photos with a checklist and pencil inside.
- Take Hazel with us, even on short trips, when wildfire conditions are high.
- Set up a scanner to monitor fire communications in real-time (assuming they’re not encrypted).
- Move even more documents and valuables into our safety deposit box.
- Digitize more of our photo collection.
At the end of the day, we’re just so grateful: to the neighbors who spotted the fire early, to the fire departments who attacked it hard, and to the rain that gave our dry region a much-needed break.
If you’ve ever had to go through a process like this, I’m curious to hear what lessons you might have to share with us. Feel free to comment.
Thomas
Life continues to throw lemons and they are best used for lemonade
What about cameras, computers, drones and your favourite tools?
I am starting to wonder if a well equipped Airstream is a better idea…just drive off and just leave the tire tracks behind?
Its a shed, its a shack and its ready to roll!
John ve3ips
We in Scotland have been suffering the scourge of wildfires lately as well. There is no easy answer, other than you have to save your loved ones and as much of your precious possessions as you can. Thank you for the post as it is a timely reminder that these horrendous extreme events are probably here to stay as climate change runs its course.
Stay Safe.
Great food for thought! My wife keeps a pack with titles and insurance papers ready to go…. always. Also, if room permits, take a few cups of food for your dog or cat if you have time. They’re more on a schedule than humans and could be more comforting for them when evacuation leads you to a new temp location. 73, stay safe.
Dang! You all are having a hard time catching a break this year.
Thanks for the timely tips, but more importantly, thanks for letting us know that you and your family are safe.
Plan for more than a few days
Motorhome or
Flight cases or suitcases
Solar panel
Lithium battery
Charging leads
Reel of aerial wire
Multimeter
I greatly appreciate your continued insights through what life keeps throwing at you! Happy to hear everyone is OK in the family and community. Take care!
Glad you are all okay.
Best,
John KM6AHT
I’m glad you had time to organize, these things can pop up suddenly. It’s very strange to me we are having weather anomalies like this (even here where I live). I wish you and yours stay safe and the fires are put out before they can do any more damage to wildlife and property.
72 de AI5DD
Joe
Thomas,
First, glad you’re safe, and thanks for the update on that! Second, when you find some time to think, please give us an update on your community’s GMRS and repeater usage. I’m curious how that’s going. Are neighbors monitoring the GMRS repeater regularly? Getting on when an incident occurs? How were you able to talk to neighbors so readily during this fire incident? I’m asking because our small Southwest Florida manufactured home community CERT team has recently adopted GMRS radios for simplex communications especially during hurricane season. How is your local fire station organized so that you’ll be able to go directly to them via GMRS? In our case, I’m a member of ARES and must use the ARES emergency net to communicate with the EOC and county dispatchers if we need an emergency response when the phone and internet goes down. It would be great if we could simply get on a GMRS simplex frequency to the local fire department or EMS next door. They’re only 2 miles from our community by radio. Anything you can share about your community’s current communications plan would be appreciated. Your ad hoc hurricane Helene communications have come a long way since then.
73, Paul
N4FTD
As the January fires in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena areas of Los Angeles demonstrated, you cannot assume that the contents of bank safety deposit boxes will be unaffected by fire. Several banks in our area were completely gutted. It’s not yet clear whether some contents were scorched or melted by the heat, but the boxes that survived had to be moved and stored in secure locations, so customers could not immediately access their boxes. It’s wise to make cloud-stored digital copies of any documents stored at the bank, along with photos of any valuables to support insurance claims.
In 2016 we owned 20 acres in the mountains of New Mexico. A human started wildfire originated about 5 miles west of our place and within 2 days the high winds had carried the flames about7 miles north then reversed and came back to our property. We had our motorhome packed and about midnight the flames were on the ridge north of us and they were about 100 feet high. We evacuated and were away for 8 days.
The fire came within 30 feet of our house and was beat back by some great fire fighters who expressed gratitude for the fire break road that surrounded our home. The embers burned 49 holes in the roof and the slurry that the planes dropped got on the exterior of the house. The 17,000 acre fire burned 14 of our 20 acres so we lived in a black forest of dead trees after that.
All of the ideas mentioned are worth doing and everyone should “Be Prepared”. You can never pack and take all that you would like to and it is important to sort out what goes and what stays.
I am an ex-industrial firefighter and recognized that my little amount of fire fighting equipment would be no match for a wildfire moving at 30 miles per hour.
Possessions can be replaced but lives cannot.
Oh my – wildfires…what’s next for Western NC – plagues, locusts and pestilence ? I was reading your post while in the Emergency Room at UNC with Alanna, and wondering about life. We’ve had to evacuate our house at North Myrtle Beach from hurricanes, but not the same as the Raleigh house. Just grab what you need and go. So glad you and your family and neighbors and Hazel are well. Thanks to the Fire service folks who risk their lives to help others. It doesn’t have to be a disaster – home fires start every 88 seconds in the US. Have a small fireproof safe here – among things, it has my most valuable QSL cards
Agree entirely with your radio choice – Elecraft, then Mountain Toppers. then Pennteks…Your post drives home that we need to be more organized for a home fire or other one…need Go Kits and more. BTW, Alanna is doing better. Ruled out big, bad ones. Clear liquid diet for a few days, rest and meds….Hope she can do the SOTA campout later this week….
I live over on Harrison hill. What frequency are y’all on for GMRS?
Swannanoa Repeater (GMRS Channel 23)
(this is the best repeater for all of the Bee Tree Valley and Swannanoa/Black Mountain)
Frequency: 462.550 MHz
Offset: + 5 MHz
PL Transmit Tone (T-CTCSS): 67 Hz
Glad you were spared further difficulties and Hazel and family were safe!
I understand the “Grab all Elecraft” sentiment!
Thomas, A great “lessons learned” write-up that we can all benefit from. I am glad to hear you are all safe. I have one comment regarding your recommendation;
-Set up a scanner to monitor fire communications in real-time (assuming they’re not encrypted).
As taxpayers we should insist that our local governments implement prudent use of encryption for just this reason, situational awareness can be the difference between life and death. In short, the practice of unencrypted dispatch TGs, with encryption reserved for ops TG(s) supporting more sensitive investigative work, is a workable compromise. This practice allows citizens to keep informed of first responder operations in their area, without overwhelming switchboards or responding personnel with queries. This middle ground provides departments a mechanism to conduct sensitive operations in a secure manner.
Thomas,
Glad to hear you dodged another potential disaster and that Hazel is fine. My one comment regarding the radios you “saved” would be to consider adding the ft817/818. Although there are used ones on the market they may not have the hard to find cw filters that you have installed. Looking forward to a GMRS report as well. Also, I hope you and your family can settle down to some sense of normalcy for the balance of the year.
Thomas, I’m glad you and the family came out ok. Too many fires in the area especially up around Saluda in Polk county as well as towards Lake Lure. We have been lucky in my area. (5 miles east of 221 and a mile north of 74 along the Green River).
Can you give us a more in-depth look into the GMRS system that you and your neighbors are using?
Thanks
W4MKH