Prepare for Wildfire

Harden your home, ready your go-bag, and know when to leave.

Create defensible space

Clear leaves, brush, and flammable material within at least 30 feet of the home. Keep gutters clean, trim branches away from the roof, and move firewood and propane tanks away from the house.

Ready to go

Keep a go-bag packed, cars fueled and backed into the driveway, and important documents ready. Sign up for local emergency alerts.

Smoke matters too

Keep N95 masks for smoke; set HVAC to recirculate and close outside air intakes.
Create a clean-air room with a portable air cleaner if you can.
Leave early when advised — do not wait to see flames.

This guidance is general and not a substitute for official instructions from local emergency officials.

Related guides

Plan Your EvacuationPlan

Prepare for FloodingHazards

Put it into action

Build your family plan → Ready Kit

Dusk Harbor — helping families be ready after real disasters. Guidance aligns with public Ready.gov / FEMA recommendations and is not a substitute for official local emergency instructions. In a life-threatening emergency, call 911 and follow official local instructions.

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Jacob Flintbushcraft

Scout your water sources before you need them. Walk your area now and note every reliable spring, creek, and standing pond within a mile of home—mark them on a paper map. In a crisis you want to know where water is, not go searching thirsty. Moving water and rain-fed sources beat stagnant, but treat all of it.

Willa Harthomestead

Stockpiling canned food does no good if you can't open it—keep two manual can openers with your stores, one in the kit and one in the kitchen. Test them on a can now; the cheap ones often skip or dull fast, and you don't want to discover that hungry in the dark.

Nora Solready home

Keep at least a week's worth of any prescription medications ahead of your regular refill, and store a printed list of names, doses, and prescribers with your kit. Pharmacies can be closed or out of stock for days after a disaster, and that written list speeds care if you end up somewhere new.

Jacob Flintbushcraft

Test your fire kit before you need it, not during an emergency. Keep tinder in a waterproof tin and carry two ignition sources—a ferro rod works soaked, a lighter can fail cold or wet. In rain, gather dead branches still attached to standing trees; ground wood is nearly always too damp to catch.

Nora Solready home

Store a gallon of water per person per day and aim for a three-day supply at minimum. Refill sealed store-bought jugs every year, and keep a few in the freezer—they hold cold during outages and become drinking water as they thaw.

Willa Harthomestead

Start one skill this season: a small garden bed, a batch of canned tomatoes, a bag of beans cooked from scratch. Self-reliance compounds.