it starts right now

men just love to run their fucking mouth about what women do or do not want without even once considering consulting any actual women on the matter

I wanted to put together a post of resources and advice all collected into one spot, so here we go!

And remember, just because you think you live in an area where you are safe from wildfires because "it doesn't happen here" does not mean your risk is zero. Wildfires can happen anywhere in the United States, and their prevalence is increasing. Don't be afraid, just be aware and prepared.

Watch Duty

First and foremost, no matter where you live, I HIGHLY recommend getting the Watch Duty app and turning on alerts for the area you live. It is available on Apple, Android, and just as a website. It will allow you to get push notification updates for any wildfires that start in your area, what's happening with them, evacuation information, shelter information, and more all in one spot. It is now available in all fifty states.

The basic and important functions are all free, but you can also get a paid subscription to access some other neat stuff like a flight tracker to see what the firefighting aircraft are doing, fire progression prediction models, a list of links to local emergency services radio feeds you can listen to, etc.

Local Alerts

Signing up for local alerts is also something you need to do. EVEN IF YOU WERE SIGNED UP BEFORE 2026, RECHECK THAT YOU ARE SIGNED UP. Last year the Code Red system, which was one of the most popular local alert systems, was hacked and many places have since moved to other platforms. This means you may need to sign up again even if you were signed up before.

To find out what your local alert system is and how to sign up, search for your town's emergency management information, check government websites, check local fire department websites, or ask local officials.

Mitigate Mitigate Mitigate

Wildfires are going to happen. The best way to help protect your home and/or your business is to mitigate the impact when a fire starts. Things like defensible space, keeping your roof free of combustible debris, screening vents with metal mesh, and using fire safe plants can all be the difference between saving your home and losing it.

The FireWise program is a great place to get started with mitigation, especially if you are interested in community and neighborhood scale projects.

Another great resource if you want to look at mitigation on the community scale is the trainings offered by Coalitions & Collaboratives.

Be sure to also check what resources are available in your local community. You may be able to grants or other forms of support to help with your own mitigation projects.

Prevent the Fire Before it Starts

Put your campfire all the way out. Maintain your vehicle to prevent sparks. Don't park on or against dry plants. If you are towing, make sure your tow chains aren't dragging. If you have snow chains hung on the bottom of your vehicle anywhere, make sure those aren't dragging.

Obey Fire Restrictions

Fire restrictions are generally done on a city or county level, and can be found on the associated city or county websites. Some places are better about this than others. Most areas use the same general restrictions like no open burning, no fireworks, etc., but some may have more specific restrictions you should be familiar with.

And use common sense. If it is hot, dry, and/or windy, don't do things that could start a fire.

Know How to Report a Wildfire

Reporting a wildfire, or potential wildfire, can be tricky without an address. The BEST way is to provide a latitude/longitude, which can usually be obtained on your phone by opening a map app and dropping a pin where you think the fire is, or using other place finding apps like a compass.

If that's not an option, the closest cross streets and landmarks are good. Try to give the closest town as well, even if it is a good distance away, since there are many duplicate place names so having the closest town will help narrow things down considerably.

Understand Your Insurance

I wish I had a good link for this one, but it's going to vary heavily by state. Everyone is doing something different these days, pushing different legislation, enforcing different things. The best thing you can do for yourself is to read through your current policy(ies), talk to your insurance agent, and look up ongoing reforms in your state/area. But it is better to take the time to understand these things now, ahead of fire season.

Have an Evacuation Plan

Know multiple ways out of your neighborhood AND the area where you work AND anywhere else you spend an extensive amount of time. There is a very, very good chance that in a wildfire emergency your cellphone will lose signal and you will not be able to use a GPS app. Pre-planning your evacuation route--and actually driving it a few times--can be critical.

Keep up to date paper maps in your vehicle as well, and know how to read them, in case you lose cell signal for a more extensive amount of time.

Do not attempt to drive on roads that you and/or your vehicle is not capable of. If you get stuck, that creates a much bigger issue for you, other evacuees, and responders.

If you don't drive, for reasons of disability or otherwise, make a plan with friends or family for how you will get out. If you don't have a good support system, reach out to your local fire department to see if they know of any local services that can help, or if they can just take note of your address.

Have a Go Bag Ready

Last but not least, have a Go Bag ready along with your general preparedness measures. A Go Bag is something with JUST the basics. It is not meant to be everything you could ever need, or a full survival system. It is a backpack with the necessities to get you through the first 24-48 hours of an evacuation so you can get your feet under you and figure out the rest from there.

(Full alt text for this poster below the cut.)

For this week's Off Topic Tuesday, I'm choosing a darker and less pleasant topic, but one that's important for me to raise awareness for: sibling abuse.

Sibling abuse is one of the most common forms of domestic violence, and it's also estimated to be the most under-reported due to how incredibly normalized and accepted it is. Despite how common, under-reported, and normalized sibling abuse is, it is equally as traumatic and damaging as parental abuse.

It's normal for siblings to argue, it's normal for siblings to tease each other, it's normal for siblings to have some rivalry. It is not normal / healthy sibling rivalry for one sibling to repeatedly harm and terrorize the other, especially when the sibling repeatedly doing the harming and terrorizing has some power dynamic tilted in their favor (such as being older, larger, stronger, etc.)

This is important to me because I am a survivor of sibling abuse. I have been completely non-contact with my siblings for over ten years now, and I have also spent those ten years in trauma therapy to try to recover from the things my siblings did to me and put me through. I feel very passionate about the cause of sibling abuse because all the while I was enduring abuse the adults around me dismissed it as "sibling rivalry" instead of helping or protecting me.

It's not normal sibling rivalry that I spent my childhood and adolescence covered in bruises from being assaulted by my older siblings (and couldn't fight back because they were bigger than me). It's not normal that as a teenager I couldn't sleep at night because I was so afraid of my older siblings, and ten years later I still need to take sleep aids at night because despite all the trauma therapy and being no-contact, that terror of my older siblings still lives within me which still makes it hard to sleep at night. Someone might have intervened earlier and taken the abuse seriously if it had been an adult, such as a parent, aunt, uncle, grandparent who was harming and terrorizing me. But because it was "just" my siblings no one really cared or intervened.

So here's what you can do: stop contributing to the idea that abusive behavior between siblings is in any way normal or acceptable. If it would be wrong for a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, etc to do it to a child, it's wrong for a sibling to do it. This is especially the case when power dynamics come into play, such as one sibling being older / bigger / stronger than the other sibling they're harming and/or terrorizing.

Not to say younger siblings never abuse older siblings, it is true that the majority of sibling abuse cases are an older sibling abusing a younger sibling, but if a younger sibling has some power dynamic or advantage tilted in their favor (such as the older sibling being disabled while the younger sibling is able bodied) a younger sibling can still abuse an older sibling.

This was definitely a major contributing factor in my case. I can't really say that the adults in my family really ever taught or enforced boundaries on my older siblings. Nobody taught or enforced to my older siblings that they actually need to respect words like "stop" "no" and "don't", so if someone smaller and weaker than them (such as a younger sibling) tried to use those words to them it was completely meaningless.

By the time we were teenagers and eventually young adults and their behavior had escalated into what was undeniably domestic violence, when the (older) adults in my family at this point *finally* started thinking "hmm, maybe we should tell the older kids to back off a little in how much they physically assault and verbally abuse (my name)" at this point it was essentially too late. They had been getting away with it for too long, and they couldn't suddenly learn to respect boundaries and the words "no" or "stop" as easily a younger kid might be able to.

Another thing the article mentions that I think is a good point is that preventing sibling abuse means making sure kids are getting age appropriate adult supervision, because kids not getting enough age appropriate supervision can be a risk factor for sibling abuse developing. Violent and inappropriate behavior should be nipped in the bud as soon as adults witness it, but that's not always possible if adults aren't present to witness it in the first place. Lack of age appropriate adult supervision can lead to violent and inappropriate behavior to continue without being properly addressed by an adult.