Yesterday I got a very good, real life look at what will happen when SHTF. Actually it was a localized shtf event in Orange County, Ca. I was in the City or Irvine for the day and a typical Southern California brushfire broke out. We have had several weeks of typically warm/hot weather. Yesterday we also had the pleasure of hot high winds, known around here as Santa Ana Winds.

The fire started in the morning around 10:30, origin unknown in the hills above Anaheim. It grew exponentially until around noon it was at 2,500 acres. Many of the thousands of homes in the immediate area of the fire had to be evacuated and many of those homes are horse property. A little after 1500 PDT I left where I was in Irvine. The city of Irvine is just southeast of the fire area and masses of evacuating people were in the area. There were thousands of others who were trying to get to their homes before they were ordered to evacuate. The result was gridlock. Major freeways in the area were closed as well as many of the major surface streets.

A trip of 18.3 miles which should have taken me about 32 minutes normally was a two hour and 20 minute drive.

If you think that when a SHTF situation happens you will just hop in your car and leave the area, think again!

By the way the fire is one of the 'smaller fires' currently burning in the state. Apparently the great wine producing area of Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino counties are dealing with terrific loses. Local news is concentrating on our local fire so I don't have too many facts on what has taken place up there, but the loss of at lest 11 lives and thousands of homes and businesses has taken place.