Never Stop in a Chimney: Where Not to Get Stuck on a Mountain Road During a Wildfire Evacuation
When traffic stops on a mountain road during an evacuation, where you stop matters. Retired LAFD Fire Marshal Mark Nelson explains why you never wait in a chimney.
Here in the hills around West Hills, most of us have one or two ways out, and they're usually winding canyon roads. When an evacuation order comes, everybody leaves at once, and traffic stops. Most people never think about where their car is sitting when that happens. Retired LAFD Fire Marshal Mark Nelson taught me to think about it, and I want every homeowner in the WUI to hear what he told me.
What Firefighters Call a Chimney
Where a mountain road curves into a gully or canyon, it makes a U-shaped bend. Firefighters call that terrain a chimney. Fire and superheated air race up a narrow drainage the same way smoke goes up a flue. If you're stopped at the bottom of that bend when fire gets into the canyon below, you're sitting in the worst place on the road.
What to Do Instead
- Don't get held up in the bend. If traffic is stopping, try not to come to rest where the road dips into a gully or canyon.
- Pull ahead to a wide spot, clear of brush, away from the gully, when you safely can.
- Keep your windows up and vents closed while you wait, and keep your headlights on so crews can see you.
- Leave early. The best way to avoid getting stuck in a chimney is to be gone before the road fills up.
What You Need to Know
- Know your routes before fire season. Drive them on a calm day and notice where the road drops into gullies and where the wide, cleared turnouts are.
- Follow evacuation orders. Go when you're told to go, and follow the directions of fire and law enforcement on the road.
- This is general safety information, not a substitute for instructions from your local fire department.
Thank you to retired LAFD Fire Marshal Mark Nelson for sharing this wisdom. It's insanity not to be prepared.
Please like and share this. It helps neighborhoods be safe.
Sherwin Ross is the founder of Ace Fire Defense, based in West Hills, CA. After the 2018 Woolsey Fire, he became CERT-trained and started building wildfire defense equipment for homeowners.