California has its own special season – fire season! Turn on the news and you can see how important it is to have plans in place when wildfires or forest fires hit, including a plan on how to protect your tech during fire season. According to the U.S. Forest Service, fire seasons are 78 days longer than in the 1970s. Since 2000, at least 10 states have had their largest fires on record. For the year 2020 in California, statistics from the National Interagency Fire Center show more than 10,000 recorded wildfires, damaging more than four million acres of land, and threatening more than 700,000 communities.
These worrying statistics, combined with current drought and weather conditions are putting emergency preparedness at the top of everyone’s list, ours included. Here are a few things we recommend you add to your list, especially when it comes to how to protect your tech:
- Clean ash off outdoor cameras and devices like Ring doorbells or garage keypads.
- Make sure batteries are fresh in smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.
- Test smart smoke detector devices (such as Nest) to be sure they are active and working.
- Add in-home smart devices that are valuable to your emergency packing list in case of evacuation.
- Clean in-home air filters and A/C units if your area is exposed to heavy smoke or ash for more than a few days.
- Have a digital disaster plan. Create backups of important files and save to the cloud or other offsite area. (More digital backup ideas: How to Prepare for a Digital Disaster.)
- Smart phone prep: Set up email and social media on your phone, if you don’t already use it, as a way to connect to family when you have no other options.
- Stock up on portable chargers and car chargers that can be used to charge phones, tablets and other devices if you lose power for an extended amount of time. Solar-powered ones are a great option for long-term loss of power.
- Download and store critical files on your phone such as emergency plans, contact lists, and medical information for easy access.
Living here in California brings us many advantages – but along with the good can come some bad, and that’s fire season. In addition to general emergency and evacuation preparedness, we advise that you add these actions to your checklist to assure that your tech is secure and ready for you when you return home.
If you have any questions about protecting Softcom routers or any other Softcom wireless equipment you have at your home, office, farm, or place of business give us a call at (800) 982-7675 or 1 (888) 4-SOFTCOM, we’re here to help.