What would you take with you in a fire?
 

I am watching the devastation in Los Angeles and reading that people had only minutes to evacuate their homes.

What are the 5 items that you would take with you if you only had 15 minutes to evacuate your house? I am talking about physical items - not family and pets.

Easy, Top 5 items:

1. The Sentry file safe and little personal safe that is inside my gun safe. They contain emergency cash, passports, SSN cards, and a myriad of other important documents;
2. Go-Bag that contains toiletries, medications, wallet, keys, cellphone, firearm, and several pre-loaded ammo mags;
3. Tote (yellow/black storage tote) already filled with my most important file folders;
4. Tote already filled with photo albums / sentimental mementoes;
5. Flat of water / food / dogfood;

I learned a lot talking to a lady that owns a safe store in an area that had been devastated by fires a few years ago. She told me a few very important things.

Firstly, DO NOT put anything in the safe that is in plastic protective covers or ziplock type bags. Coins, baseball cards, photos in albums, etc. They will melt and completely and totally ruin their contents. Digital media like thumb drives, diskettes, hard drives, etc. are plastic - they will melt.

Secondly, if you're going to store cash you have to do it right. Loose is not correct. Get a few of those little metal airtight cans like PVC glue comes in (links below). They're about $30 for a dozen. The inner seals for them are about $3/dozen. Next, get some silicone (not rubber or elastic) hair ties. Then, go to Home Depot and a get a foot of copper wire that is fairly stiff and about the diameter of a penny nail. It will run you about $3. It's located in the electrical section where they have reels of different size wiring. Go to the bank and get $480 in twenty dollar bills and $20 in singles.

Take a 3-inch section of that copper wire (cut with pliers into 3-inch sections). Then start VERY TIGHTLY wrapping twenty dollar bills around it. Wrap all the twenties around it. Then wrap the 20 singles around it. The tighter the better. You are trying to eliminate air gaps to prevent your money from going aflame. You will end up with a roll about 1.5 inches across. The outside singles are sacrificial in the very rare case the heat gets crazy and starts singeing the money. The singles are protecting your twenties, essentially. The copper nail-like section acts as a heat sink. Wrap the silicone hair tie around the roll and seal up the whole thing in one of the little cans. Silicone has a very high melt rate of approximately 500F. There you go, the best way to store emergency cash.

Having lived through the Northridge Quake, I learned Cash Is King. No electricity means no ATMs and no store's Point of Service works. That means no debit card or credit card transactions. A $5 flat of water will be priced at $20. There will be extensive price gouging and you WILL pay it because very shortly afterward all supplies will be sold out to those that will pay it. The money will go fast. If an item is priced at $13, you are going to pay $20 for it. Why? Because NO ONE will make change. That is why you do not store one-hundred dollar bills as emergency cash. You will want/need twenties, and LOTS of them. The singles from your bundle of emergency cash are also very useful. Hundreds are not useful. If you have something that others want, they will take it from you - by brute force if need be. Hence the firearm and the ammo.

You just need enough to survive for a few days or, at worst, a few weeks until order and some semblance of normalcy and utilities are restored.

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1. Sentry safe with important docs (passport, birth certificate, marriage license, etc)
2. laptop, phone, tablet
3. box of older sentimental photos
4. suitcase of clothes, toiletries, and medications
5. christmas ornaments (lifetime of collecting - many memories)

Golf carts
Golf clubs
Swim bag
Bicycles
Wallet/Iphone/Ipad

My phone, and two photographs.

Some of the fires here in the Villages leave you very little time to get out.

Wallet.
Cell phone.
Important documents.
Two photos.

My wife.

Edited; actually I have fire proof safe with all important documents and passwords. I would grab that also.

My family. Screw the rest!

My insurance paperwork
My computers
My personal docs SS, passport, etc
My dog with her harness & leash
Blanket
Go

Besides obvious - wallet, passport, iPhone, iPad, laptop, if possible I would grab keys and drive car away.

I’m not attached to any possessions - I would grab my legal docs that I keep in a storage container, and a big photo album, where I have condensed all memorable family photos into one album. That’s it!

GOOD MAN! She will thank you.

Once I knew everyone was safe, I would grab our meds, our ID docs (all in one place in my safe), the good jewelry (also in the safe) and a few of my "special guitars. One, a Martin acoustic I've had since college, and three custom made electrics. If I had room, I'd also grab my 2 vintage Fender guitars and my '58 Les Paul Re-Issue...

I might grab my laptop, but everything is backed up to the cloud, so that is easily replaced...

Golf clubs, passport, maybe my wife depending on how things are going at that moment.

Car keys
Sneakers
Lots of cash
A sandwich
A Map
If I only have 15 minutes all I'm interested in is getting my butt out of there, material things mean nothing if you're not around to enjoy
it.
Oh, the map is important, after fires, earthquakes and mud slides, the map will help me decided where in the country I would rather live than California.

Totally depends on the fire circumstance.

If it's in the middle of the night, my wallet if I can reach it.

If I have a warning. As much as I can fit in my car.

#1 important papers/IDs/cards and cash
#2 Lots of water and food
#3 Blanket, Towel, Clothing and shoes for all types of weather
#4 Phone and Computer with chargers
#5 Toiletries
Let's hope we never have to deal with this topic, but good to be prepared.

My wife's wheelchair and her cane
 

These are the only two things that come to mind.

????????????

Oh, yes. Just remember a third.

MY WIFE!!

ElDiabloJoe...All great info. We also had our home destroyed in the Northridge Earthquake and I have a few things to add.

Cars - always treat them like ½ a tank of gas is empty so that worst case scenario you always have at least that ½ a tank.

Documents - Scan all your important documents and save them to a cloud (DropBox, Google Drive, OneDrive, etc.). so you can access them from anywhere and on any device.

Devices - Like the gas tanks, always keep your tablets, smart watches, etc. charged above 50%.

When I left my home during a CA wildfire, I took my 2 dogs, cat, turtle and my grandson. I figure everything else could be replaced.

I was there for the Northridge quake. Scared the crap out of me. I was packed and came to FL in two weeks. But then, I realized all my friends were there and they were ok so I went back.

Truthfully if you’re looking at lighting strike probably wouldn’t have time for much. Especially if you have gas appliances. if your phone is close.

Now if you are suggesting a fire storm such as socal, in TV, then you will see a mass evacuation 2 days before it becomes an official evacuation. Then again if you live south of 44 very little foliage/trees, so less fire debris floating.

As far as what we would take, all docs (saved on cloud) and any sentimental items are in bank vault. We keep an emergency phone in car, (built in WiFi) with go bag for us and go bag/pet carrier. (For us go bag is for use in case of emergency run to Gainesville.)
That way grab pet, (she’s old so easy to find on the loveseat) out the door in minutes

That is proprietary information that I never share.

So glad to hear you say to scan all important documents. I did that before we moved here from SoCal (also experienced the EQs, and had to evacuate more than once for wildfires). I also digitized all photos and home videos (this was a long process, but very much worth it). I wish I had done it much sooner. Knowing the most important docs, and irreplaceable photos/videos are saved in the cloud is very comforting in an evacuation emergency.

I don’t understand those who are saying take the safe. Isn’t your safe fireproof? Ours is, and there’s no way my hubby and I could grab that thing and get it into our vehicle without help. Definitely not if trying to get out within the time period we’ve had in the past to evacuate for wildfires.

The last time we evacuated was in Nov 2018 for the Woolsey fire. It took 45 minutes just to catch one of our terrified cats. We were lucky we had that time because many didn’t. In most fire evacuations you will not have the time you think you will.

No safe is fire"proof."

Very large gun safes can easily weigh 1,000 pounds (1/2 ton). Most resist water and air (and thieves) from getting in, at least for a time, but the heat is what will singe/damage/catch things on fire. No safe is fireproof. They have a rating at which they will resist heat to rated temps for a rated amount of time. Basic safes will rate to 1,200F for an hour. 1,200F isn't hard to reach in a fire, and an hour goes by quickly.

That rating (safes vary - as do their price accordingly) means they will keep contents under 350f for an hour. Paper combusts at 451F. A fire will reach that easily. If your gun safe is in the middle of the house or deep in a basement, the temps will soar. If it is along an outside garage wall where air and firefighters with water can get to it and cool it down quickly, your odds of successfully saving contents increase greatly.

A Sentry safe is a grab-n-go safe that you can put inside your gun safe to give a double layer of protection from heat and water. It's like nesting boxes to protect goods you are shipping. Here's a link to what most mean when they refer to a Sentry safe:

Amazon.com

Site Maintenance

Here's a basic primer on safe ratings: An Explanation of Fire Ratings for Home Safes and Gun Safes | Dean Safe

Fire
 

Two security boxes, small safe, money, and laptop. Only if there's time.

Ahhhh, drugs and sex toys. Got it.

My wife and my pups.

O.P. specifically excluded family and pets. So what OTHER 5 items would one take?

i'd grab my meds, bank cards, pc, hubby's urn and if possible, my car

Fire
 

HAHA. Mention that to her so she has the same option.:1rotfl::1rotfl:

Maybe most are already prepared with offsite storage and scanned docs. Only thing left to consider is family and pets:D

While it's a great idea to give this some thought, it may not be a great idea to post a list here of your valuables, cash, guns, etc.

wallet and cash, glasses and sun glasses, knife, small set of tools, small axe , 22 pistol or rifle plus ammo, H2O, cans of food plus can opener, underwear, shorts, belt, poly long underwear, wool pants,wool shirt, poly shirt, 50/50 cotton pants, roll of paper towels. knit cap, cotton/poly cap with brim, wool outer jacket, waterproof matches or firestarter kit, 6ft by 6 ft plastic tarp, 15 ft of 3/8 nylon rope, roll of 1/8 nylon string, roll of monofiliment line plus 2 silver spoon fish lures and assorted set of hooks, boyscout-type set of aluminum cooking ware, medicines, white bandage tape, black electrical tape, sling shot, blow up air mattress, small animal traps, whistle

Really don’t care about the other stuff; material stuff can be replaced.

I was a prepper before it was a word 40 years ago. Cash & some
clothing.
I have go bags ready that have long-term food, water filters, toiletries, first aid kit and even have biohazard suits. My friends laughed at me till after 9/11 and we worried about turkey point nuke power plant getting hit in South Florida. 10 or 20 friends called me the next day if I had any more for sale.lol.
And used to have rolls of quarters in there for payphones! Lol. And I didn't have an iPhone back then but I'll bring one now.
And all my important paperwork is together. And I'll bring plenty of protection😉
And of course, my dog

Thank you for this info!

Good to think of it now
 

I have a Photo Flip book with 4x6 index cards with a list of things. Each card is for the amount of time you have. Grab and go, 30 min, 1 hour, several hours

Things to think of.

Phone/Computers/Chargers
Medicines/Prescriptions/medical records
Have cards with Key phone numbers in a grab and go pouch
I always say grab your dirty laundry and/or folded clothes, this is what you wear most often.
Have waters/snacks that can grab and go, it could take time to get settled or to get through traffic.

The list is long, but think of it now and you'll be less stressed then.