Watching some of the videos it does my head in - people trying to still go around doing every day tasks (i.e. cutting the hedges around their property and not for possible fire prevention reasons) while the fire is approaching (with mandatory evacuations being spread around the area) with a high chance their homes are going to go up (though in this case a good number were spared).
Looking a bit grim - a good number of elderly unaccounted for that probably didn't escape :s
Yup, as often seems to be the case the plans for the evacuation of the elderly/infirm/unable to evac themselves seems to fail
Largely because by the time the evacuation order is given there may not be enough time for the limited resources allocated for the "requires assistance" evacuations to take place, especially when the roads are full
(I think often the evac plans are timed based on normal traffic for example).
The same thing happens in the hurricanes etc, a disproportionate number of the dead are typically the disabled, elderly and poor, the first two groups because they often require assistance or are reliant on third parties to start their evacuation (especially if living in care homes), and the latter because they may not have transport themselves or they simply cannot afford to evacuate early enough (there are always examples of people whose bosses basically tell staff that if they don't turn up for work they'll be fired, even before you consider that a lot of people literally cannot afford a day off in addition to the cost of evacuation*).
Then you get the people that don't believe it will happen to them, or are more worried about looters than the fire//hurricane etc.
Even just having a few areas with a large concrete expanse (so the fire is a couple of hundred meters away), and a relatively lightweight shelter made out of non flammable materials would probably save lives, there was one story I read about how people who'd got caught out at a clinic/hospital looking for help due to injuries were saved by the fact the facility had a large concrete helipad, when the fire reached them they moved onto the concrete which kept them far enough from the fire to survive.
*One of the really unpleasant ways in which US employment law often hurts it's employees is that there are so few protections in many areas for them, so the employees (especially at the most vulnerable end of the scale) are under massive pressure to put getting to work before anything else, as they may have no savings and not even enough to fill the tank in their car for a long unplanned journey.
