One would think, but with winds and certain terrains some fires would outrun a NASCAR. They can be burning merrily along one direction and switch on a dime. Embers can travel and settle miles away to start a fire no one is even aware of immediately.
Our last year in northern Cali we had a fire about ten miles out, heading away from us. I plopped my 250 pounds of dogs, our bug out bag and my brother in my truck and we were off. But getting in the truck we could see the flames just down our street, engulfing the tall pines. It had went into a dry creek bed that accelerated it to frightening speeds.
Too many underestimate fire and don't understand how it works.
I would think Californians would have a unique insight into the danger wildfires represent just as people in tornadoe alley do with tornadoes.
Lots of Californians recognized the smell of wildfires versus structure fires- and yeah wind and warm temperatures tend to alert us.
But most people are not awake at 2 in the morning to notice these things.
And this was a wildfire that became an urban fire- jumping a freeway, a highway- and an entire parking lot around a K-Mart- and setting it on fire.
It burned down an entire urban neighborhood on the flat land with the closest 'wildland' a mile away.
And no officials set off any alarm systems....
I pose the same question I did in the title...
Or course you do- since I answered your original question- and now you are trying to dance away from how idiotic and ignorant your OP was.
This took me 15 seconds to find on Google:
Emergency alerts get scrutiny after deadly Sonoma, Napa county wildfires
"People were in bed, asleep at midnight, and these fires came down on these communities with no warning within minutes," said state fire agency Chief Ken Pimlott.
"There was little time to notify anybody by any means," he added.
In emergencies where a few minutes or even seconds can save lives, the notification systems have inherent blind spots. Not everyone will get the message. Sonoma County uses a service that sends out text messages or emails when an evacuation is ordered, but residents have to sign up to receive them. The county also uses a mobile phone app that can receive messages, but again it requires a resident to opt-in to participate.
The county can also trigger automated emergency calls to landlines in an area threatened by fire, but that would only reach homes with those phones.
The Sonoma County Sheriff's Department said the county's emergency alert service texted thousands of warnings to residents to flee Sunday night. However, nearly 80 cellphone towers were knocked out or badly damaged, officials said.
