Pull the pin. Aim the nozzle. Squeeze the handle. Sweep from side to side. During a fire emergency, PASS is a helpful acronym to keep in mind before using an extinguisher for the first time.
Attendees of an upcoming wildfire evacuation and survival workshop in Lompoc will have access to a fire extinguisher training session, among other scheduled programs at the event on May 31, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Cabrillo High School.
This year marks the Santa Barbara County Fire Safe Council’s second time hosting an event of this kind. The nonprofit helmed its first wildfire evacuation and survival workshop in May 2024.
Executive Director Anne-Marie Parkinson told the Sun that one of the workshop’s goals is to familiarize people with ways they can prepare for a fire evacuation emergency ahead of time, like putting together a “go bag” sooner rather than later.
“Say you have 10 minutes to get out. What do you do? What do you grab?” Parkinson said. “[There are] little steps people don’t really think about.”
Someone with a go bag packed and ready beforehand is less likely to forget something crucial, like prescribed medications, than someone who packs a bag quickly on the day of a wildfire emergency, Parkinson said. Suggested items include water bottles, first aid supplies, pet food if you have pets, etc.
To help “incentivize people to be proactive and get that to-do item off their list,” the Santa Barbara County Fire Safe Council will host a raffle during the Lompoc workshop. Anyone who brings their own go bag or proof of one via photo can enter, Parkinson explained.
Multiple winners will be drawn during the raffle, she added.
“We’re going to do a handful of prizes,” Parkinson said. “We have 100 percent wool blankets, fire extinguishers, utility wrenches.”
Another important go bag consideration is whether to store important documents, like passports and birth certificates, in a single bag or not. Many would rather keep those filed elsewhere, Parkinson said, or backed up digitally in case the physical documents become lost in a house fire.
There will be a digital scanner at the Lompoc workshop for attendees to use if they’d like to scan any documents or cherished family photographs for digital copies.
“We’ll actually digitize all that for them right then and there,” Parkinson said.
With presentations from participating fire experts, the workshop will address various topics related to wildfire evacuation, which Parkinson has firsthand experience with.
In 2007, she and her family vacated their home in San Diego during the Witch Creek Fire.
“I remember a couple of days before it impacted our house, there was smoke in the distance, and thinking, ‘Oh that’s so far away, it doesn’t matter.’ And then we got a call at 2 in the morning to evacuate,” recalled Parkinson, who was 13 at the time.
While staying with relatives, she sat “in front of the TV for days on end, just hoping to get some glimpse; some piece of information, … ‘Is my house there or not?’”
“Not knowing that is so anxiety inducing,” said Parkinson, whose home was intact when her family eventually returned.
“It was fortunate we didn’t have our entire neighborhood burned down. Our immediate neighbors lost their house,” she said. “I almost feel a little bit of guilt sometimes. Why did mine survive but theirs didn’t? Why did they lose everything but we didn’t?”
>Highlight
• In mid-April, the Santa Maria High School Associated Student Body received the Outstanding Leadership Program Award during the California Association of Student Leaders (CASL) Conference in Santa Clara. The leadership program award was designed to honor schools across California that cultivate student leadership programs, while “fostering ethical, responsible, and servant-minded leaders,” according to press materials.
Senior Staff Writer Caleb Wiseblood can be reached
at cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in May 1-11, 2025.