“I always kind of thought there would be an emergency alert of some sort, but there wasn’t.”
A second text message from her mother warned that the Camp Fire, which started on July 7, was spreading rapidly.
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The family immediately began packing to leave their site.
“We hadn’t had that sense of extreme urgency,” said Shinn. “We thought it was far from us.
You know, we didn’t really anticipate imminent danger at that time, and then very quickly, that changed.”
Within 90 minutes of the second message, the family was on the water as heavy smoke filled the air, turning the sky dark and orange.
Passing fishermen shouted warnings from their boats, urging the family to move quickly because the wind was blowing the fire directly toward the campsite.
“It was multiple boats, leaving, portaging out across from us, yelling, ‘You need to leave! Your campsite is going to be on fire!’”
said Shinn.
“From the campsite, you could tell already, the fire was certainly scary and close … but when you got across, you could tell the wind was blowing directly towards our site.
It looked like (the fire) was spreading very quickly, and we would have been in its track.”
To accelerate their escape, the family abandoned heavy gear, including their tent, to ensure the safety of their children.
“That was a really hard decision, as leave-no-trace advocates,” said Shinn.
“But at the end of the day, we had our kids and our lives to worry about, and so we did the right thing.”
Aircraft flew low overhead toward the fire while emergency outfitters passed them to assist other campers during the evacuation.
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The family reached Fall Lake Landing safely, noting that the experience highlighted the necessity of communication tools during wilderness trips.
