This series is about planning for the worst that can face us.

It’s jumping-off point is the National Institute of Standards and Technology publication, “A Case Study of the Camp Fire—Fire Progression Timeline,” an epic and thorough study about the wildfire that changed the lives of my family, friends, and some fellow Quality Digest associates in November 2018. That fire razed most of the communities on the Paradise Ridge in Butte County, California, destroyed about 19,000 structures—95-percent of the residences in Paradise—and killed 85 people.

I have come to see my part in my community’s recovery as voicing the lessons we learned—literally taking the awful and searing things we learned that are of some use before, during, and after a disaster—and passing them on to other communities so they may face their trials with some better measure of success and safety.

Part one of the series focused on the human tendency to ignore the danger you are in. This article is more about planning for what you may face. What our experience taught me is planning looks very different once you have put plans into action. As the military truism goes, “No plan survives contact with the enemy.”

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