In a major wildfire, fire protection and law enforcement agencies may not have enough equipment and manpower to go door to door advising you to evacuate; you should be ready to make this decision yourself or with the help of the reverse 9-1-1 system. The information provided below is to help prepare you for when a wildfire strikes.
Prepare For Evacuation
Know how you will be notified
If there is an emergency situation and you need to evacuated, there are several ways you will be notified:
First and most important is the county's notification system. If your address is being evacuated, you will receive a phone message with evacuation information and instructions. Landlines are automatically part of the date base, but cell phones and email addresses need to be registered. This can be done online in only a few minutes at AlertSanDiego. You can register as many cell phones and emails as you would like.- Law enforcement will go through neighborhoods advising residents of the evacuation notice.
San Diego County also has an app that can be downloaded to your phone. SD Emergency provides information on disaster preparedness and current incidents in San Diego County, including push notifications of evacuation orders. The app allows you to customize what information you see and which notifications are pushed.- During emergency situations, The Fire Department and Sheriff, Cal Fire do their best to provide up-to-date, accurate information on social media.
Pre-plan your Evacuation Route
- Narrow roads can cause traffic congestion leading to panic for those evacuating.
- From your house, identify at least TWO roads leading out of the area.
- Be sure these roads provide for two-way traffic (i.e., cars evacuating and emergency vehicles trying to access the area).
