Author to share harrowing tale of her escape from a massive wildfire
On Wednesday, Jan. 31, area residents will hear a firsthand cautionary tale from someone who barely escaped from the second-largest known wildfire in California history.
Fire officials say that harrowing scenario could happen on the forested North Coast and elsewhere in this county.
Veteran journalist Sandra Younger wrote the book “The Fire Outside My Window: A Survivor Tells the True Story of California’s Epic Cedar Fire.” She and her husband, Bob Younger, survived the 2003 fire that incinerated nearly 280,000 acres; their home and more than 2,200 other houses did not. The fire killed 15 people.
Younger will speak at the first of several free “open forum” informational sessions that the Cambria FireSafe Focus Group will sponsor. This one will be from 3 to 5 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 31, at the Veterans Memorial Building, 1000 Main St., Cambria.
“The Fire Outside my Window” will be available to buy there, and the author will sign her book for any buyer who requests it.
In a Jan. 13 phone interview, Younger defined her topics as “How not to be a disaster victim, what I wish I’d known about wildfire (before the Cedar Fire) and what it taught me about resilience.”
She’ll describe her terrifying experiences in October 2003, when she and her husband escaped through the Cedar Fire flames. She’ll also reveal some “common mistakes that can cost you your life in a fire or other natural disaster.”
Younger will tell attendees “what went right, what went wrong,” what they’ll always wonder about (could they, should they have closed the garage door with only seconds to spare?), how she and her family recovered from the disaster and why “follow the bobcat” is now her mantra.
For details, call Focus Group leader Shirley Bianchi or Susan McDonald at, respectively, 805-927-8006 or 805-927-4274, or email them at bnsbianchi@hughes.net or smcdon04@gmail.com.
Or go to http://bit.ly/2rcJS5k.
Kathe Tanner: 805-927-4140, @CambriaReporter
If you go
Hear author Sandra Younger talk about “The Fire Outside My Window,” from 3 to 5 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 31, at a free open forum sponsored by the Cambria FireSafe Focus Group in the Veterans Memorial Building, 1000 Main St., Cambria.
This story was originally published January 17, 2018 at 10:28 AM with the headline "Author to share harrowing tale of her escape from a massive wildfire."