Having lived in California all of my life (with the exception of college), I have learned to live with the elements the different seasons bring.  We have always been short on rainfall and even grew up on the saying "If it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down" when the drought seasons were especially bad.

However, now that the drought is at an all time high- a new season has emerged in California in the last few years.... "fire season".  And it's devastating.

Not only are we dealing with Covid, possible exposures and closures but we have the Air Quality Index that also tells us when it's hazardous to go outside (the pics below were taken an what should be been a "sunny" day but we were socked in by the smoke!).  So events that are deemed "Covid safe" (kid soccer games, high school dances, etc) still might be canceled because now it's too smokey outside.  It can take quite the mental toll on you.  Not to mention when your house, your life, your loved ones are threatened by the fire itself.

This especially struck me last year when I sat down and realized we were not TRULY prepared for the threat of a fire.  So, I ask you.... Are YOU prepared to evacuate if a fire threatens your house?  Do you have a plan? 

Here are a few ideas to help you on how to specifically protect your photos, videos and precious memories/mementos:

1. First, make sure all photos, videos and important documents are BACKED UP.  As a professional photographer, I am backed up in multiple ways...  I have several external drives and then I back everything up to an external cloud service called Backblaze.  For a nominal yearly fee, you can rest assured that if you are not able to get all of your hard copy prints and frames out of the house in time- your files are still in tact and the memories will be saved.  * This is also just generally important to do as there are always computer malfunctions and in general most of us don't print our photos anymore!

There are also many services out there that will scan your old photos and negatives so that you have a digital copy of those as well. I have not ventured in to that world yet as I don't have a ton of prints that aren't digitized, however I HIGHLY suggest doing it sooner rather than later!  Preaching to myself here too!  I have heard great things about ScanDigital, EverPresent and ScanCafe

2. Another set of memories that I organized for easy and quick transport are my kids' school mementos.  I purchased boxes similar to THESE and used the quarantine time to go through all of their school work I had saved since preschool.  I purged a lot, reminisced a lot and narrowed what I wanted to save down to a hanging file folder for each grade (Pre K-12th grade) for each of my kids. 

Included in the files are-

School photos, special artwork & projects, writing, id cards, awards & recognition, report cards and lots more!

This now serves many purposes....  I now have a place to put the special things immediately as they come through, it's all organized plus it's easy to grab and throw in the car should we need to leave quickly.  Additionally, when they are adults it's one small box to hand over to them rather than saddling them with a TON of things they most likely will never want.

3.  Before kids and through about Derek's first year, I did a lot of Scrapbooking (mostly of the trips we went on and the fun events leading up to our wedding).... and many (maybe all!) of those photos do not have any digital copies!  So in order to make it easier in the event of an evacuation, I went through the house and gathered all the books I have made over time.  I now have them stored all together in one easily accessible place.... one less thing to remember, track down and find in a panic.

4. I found this "Emergency Evacuation Grab & Go List" online (I cannot find the original source to credit).  Of all the checklists I came across, I feel like this one is the most organized and comprehensive.  Using this list as a guide, I created my own custom Grab & Go list specific to my family's needs.  Included on the list is everything of value (sentimental or otherwise) that I want to remember to grab... School Memento boxes, Scrapbooks, External drives, Jewelry, Home DVD's, etc in addition to things such as pet supplies, clothing, medications, and more essentials.  I hang my list in a central location, so that we have it immediately at hand should we face evacuation.

Here are a few other products I have found useful in putting a plan in place-

Fireproof File Folder

Fire Safety Kit

For anyone with a two story home, THESE are a must!

And for home fire safety in general, everyone home should have THIS and THIS

There is so much more to evacuation preparation and I am continually adding to our safety plan but I hope this was a bit helpful in helping to save your precious memories!  Stay Safe!!!!

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