‘We Didn’t Have a Plan’: Disabled People Struggle to Evacuate From Wildfires

In Northern California, a region troubled by fire, many people with disabilities live in rural areas that lack the resources to support them during disasters.

A mandatory evacuation notice blared from Joyce Lindahl’s phone one day in July as the Dixie fire bore down on her home in Northern California. But her biggest concern was an hour away. Chuck Lindahl, her brother-in-law, is paralyzed from the neck down, and his professional caregivers live in places where residents had already been ordered to evacuate. If his family also had to leave the area, he would be left alone. “Without caregivers, I’m out of luck,” he said. Plumas County had a plan for Mr. Lindahl in case of fire, but his home wasn’t in the mandatory evacuation zone yet — and officials needed to focus their limited personnel and rescue equipment elsewhere, the county’s Office of Emergency Services said.