Fire Season Safety

Huge wildfires are becoming more common, annual threats to the environment, property, and physical health in the American west and elsewhere around the world. Here are some resources I use locally; I hope you have similar resources available wherever you are in the world!

It turns out there are wildfire cameras all over the Bay Area, including one that looks down through our home park, Wildcat Canyon:

We've gone through this gate many times but until we had this link, we’d never noticed the camera at the edge of the neighborhood above.

This is a cool new helicopter deployed by Contra Costa County in firefighting:

I've been fairly obsessed and very impressed with the air resources on offer for safety, ever since I got to meet a few crews and board a few aircraft during the Chico fires during my EMT training. One pilot even let me push the button that releases the fire retardant (we were on the ground)!

I update Outside School’s policies regarding fire and other safety issues regularly, so the best place to go to seek the latest is my site:

Each day before 7:30AM I check the following websites to see what conditions are like and think about how our group may be affected.

I check general conditions for the day on the first page and then look at the 10-day and hourly forecasts:

I check the general air quality and then hit the link to our nearest air quality monitoring station:

I check the general parks page to see if they note any conditions or closures that will affect us, and then click through for our specific park:

I check CAL FIRE to search for active fires in our state:

When conditions are variable, I usually check each night before school, before 7:30PM as well. That way I can give families a heads up as necessary.

By Heather Taylor, teachoutside@gmail.com. You are welcome to share all materials with credit to her.