Wanted to share some tips about encountering wildfire on trail. Unfortunately it's a more and more common occurrence these days, especially on the PCT.

Video version if you prefer to watch vs read: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy-VzSA_COo&t

My background: I've worked as a wildland firefighter on a hotshot crew and thru-hiked quite a lot. Fires are dangerous and explosive but fairly predictable if you understand their behavior.

• Fires are primarily wind-driven. So, high winds = high spread. This can be 10-20mph or even faster, much faster than you can run, so don't think that you can outrun a wildfire. The unpredictable part is that winds can shift quickly, so favorable winds that's blowing the fire away from you could turn in a second and start blowing the fire toward you. We saw this several times on fires and had to run for our lives. There's a lot of weather science that goes into this, in some parts of the country winds typically blow one way in the morning, and switch in the afternoon, but that's just too complex to really remember and rely on. Just remember to be extra cautious on high wind days.
• Fires spread differently in different fuel types. If you're in the shrubby brushland of southern California that's where fire will spread the fastest. Through those manzanita bushes and tall grasses. We almost lost a guy because the wind shifted in a burnout in high grass and he had to literally leap through a 8ft wall of fire and singed all his face hair. Fire can move SO freaking fast through grass and shrubs. It'll generally move slower through timber, makes sense think about how much longer it takes a piece of grass to light on fire vs a big log.
• Good places to escape fires on trail are the rocky scree fields. Essentially - if there's nothing around you that can burn, then you're safe. You need to be at least 4x the length of the flames to be safe. So if fire is burning in timber and reaching 50ft then you need to be minimum 200ft away. Large bodies of water are also good, boulder fields, green meadows. Rivers and creeks aren't the best, the fuels are too close to the banks unless it's a large river/creek. We had a fire burn right through both sides of a creek and it would have cooked anyone in that creek
• Rocky ridge tops are good for escaping fires. If a fire is burning below you and there's no where to go, drop your pack and run up over the ridge. The fire will slow down as it crests the ridge.
• When in doubt call for help. The dispatch can let you know if you're in danger or not, and they can dispatch resources to help get you out. Don't wait until you're entrapped, cause by then it's often too late. Fire and rescue can often come up a lot of those little dirt roads and get you even if there's not a real road nearby.
• Fires grow the fastest in the hottest part of the day. So a fire could look mellow and safe in the morning but it could blow up and run many miles in the afternoon. So don't count on low smoke/little fire activity in the morning to make you feel safe about walking toward/through a fire.
• The two fires I encountered on trail I walked by both in the night and hiked late into the night to put distance between myself and the fire, then woke up early the next day to continue putting distance between. Both were relatively small fires and I felt confident based on my knowledge of fuels and fire behavior that they wouldn't put me in much danger. My assessment and actions likely would have been much different if I encountered those fires in the heat of the day and their activity was high, that would have probably been a time to backtrack or get off trail.
• What's burned won't burn again. If you happen to be by an already burned area and need to escape a fire, just go in where it's already burned. But if you do that be on the watchout for falling trees. Fire will weaken trees/weaken their roots, it's one of the biggest killer in wildland firefighting.
• Similar to that, the reason trail closes for months/years after a fire is because they need time to clear out all the dangerous trees so that they don't fall and kill hikers. So respect fire closures. Even if there's no active wildfire anymore there is still danger.

Be safe out there! And don't be too bummed out if you hit a fire closure. Think of it as an opportunity to create your own adventure. Some of my best times on trail were when I actually had to get off trail and figure out what to do next due to fires, and in the course of that met some really cool people and had some grand adventures.