So, my last post was almost a year ago. It’s been a long time, but I’m back! The CZU August Lightning Complex Fire hit in, well, August of 2020. We live in an area that was evacuated, but my partner and I are both volunteer firefighters with our local, all-volunteer fire brigade. We sent our kids to stay with family while we took time off from our day jobs to volunteer full time with the fire brigade. We lived with all of our important belongings (including my Icom HF radio and equipment) packed in our trailer for the duration, ready to go if the fire jumped the nearest fire break and made a run for our house. Thankfully, our town was spared the terrible destruction that most of the small towns in the Santa Cruz Mountains suffered. After the fire was finally contained, it still took us a couple months to get everything unpacked. And then with COVID hitting and the kids essentially homeschooled for most of the last year, I haven’t had a ton of time on the radio or to write.
The fire did give me a lot to write about, though, as our local amateur radio club is an integral part of our rural emergency response capabilities. Over the next couple weeks, I’ll talk about how our local hams contribute to our tiny town during emergencies and how you can get involved in emergency communications, even with just a Tech license!
