Drones are a good way to see if you are downwind from a fire

Another way to see you are downwind from a fire is if the smoke is heavy and low to the ground where you are. This is also a pretty good indication that a fire is coming your way.

Often Police and firemen are doing other things besides enforcing evacuations. So, often you are on your own because they are already overwhelmed with injuries and doing the best they can. So, in really big fires like this you are pretty much on your own.

So, If I had a 1000 dollar or so drone this is how I would use it. Primarily you need a good vantage point to see what is coming your way. Often it isn't safe to go towards a fire and see for yourself. And things can change really really fast in situations like these ones in California so even firefighters often die or are injured because something unexpected happens so they aren't prepared for it.

So, the best bet is if you know you are downwind from a fire just evacuate whether someone tells you to or not. Otherwise, you just might burn up when you least expect to. This is just the way things are right now in California.

So, your life depend upon knowing where the fires are in relation to you if you are within about 20 miles of any fire because day and night winds which drive fires can be in entirely different directions especially around foothills. So, just because the wind is going away from you now doesn't mean it isn't going to turn towards you at another point in the next 24 to 48 hours.

So, if it is at night you don't want to range around a lot you want to only go straight up from your house or you are going to lose your drone. And even then if the winds are above 5 to 10 miles per hour at night you could lose your drone anyway to the winds unless you have settings that will compensate for winds built into your drone or you are a really good pilot of a drone one or the other.

When you go straight up from your home look carefully at which direction the smoke is going. Next, look for how fast fires are moving in any direction. Then, think about what roads are being cut off that you might need to escape on because even if your house is okay now if all your escape routes are on fire that doesn't help at all in an actual emergency.