NEWS: Lessons Shared at the County’s First Wildfire Preparedness Event
San Mateo County, California sent this bulletin at 04/28/2025 05:14 PM PDT
April 28, 2025
For Immediate Release
Lessons Shared at the County’s First Wildfire Preparedness Event
Redwood City – When Heather Vandenberghe saw plumes of smoke blown by 80-mph Santa Ana winds, she listened “to that little voice in my head.”
She packed her daughter and her dogs and a few essentials into her car and headed out of Los Angeles’s Palisades area in the first hours of what would become one of the most destructive fires in California history.
Her Ring camera shows her driving away on Jan. 7 at 11:51 a.m., before any evacuation warnings or orders. “I felt like we were leaving in plenty of time,” she said later.
A neighbor who left at noon had to abandon his car in choked traffic and run for his life as fire consumed their homes. “I was nine minutes away from that,” she said. “I’m very grateful that I just trusted my intuition and got out when I did.”
Leaving early in an emergency situation was one of the lessons emphasized Saturday at a special wildfire preparedness event sponsored by the San Mateo County Department of Emergency Management in partnership with dozens of local organizations.
