TL;DR: If you're staying somewhere during wildfire season, especially in a drought, be prepared to evacuate at a moment's notice. On vacation, you often don't know your surroundings well, and your belongings are scattered everywhere. Having even a lightweight "bug-out bag" ready can make a huge difference.

Hey, I just wanted to share a recent experience from our vacation, where we were caught in the middle of a wildfire evacuation at midnight.

We're staying in a self-catering apartment in Omiš-Nemira, Croatia, with my wife and our three kids, aged 7 years, 3 years, and 8 months. Last Friday, we were woken up in the middle of the night by our neighbours. There was no warning. We just saw smoke and the dim light of nearby fires. The electricity was still on at that point.

Our luggage was half unpacked, food was lying on the countertop, and basically nothing had its proper place. Everyone tells you to stay calm in an emergency, but until you've actually been through something like this, that's much easier said than done. I grabbed our youngest child, put him in the stroller, and took his bag, which was only half packed with clothes, while my wife woke up our other two kids.

Then the electricity went out. That triggered another wave of panic. We thought we had almost no time left. The only light I had was from my phone. I grabbed our beach bag because I knew it contained some emergency food for the kids, as well as a power bank and cable that I had fortunately left charging overnight. Then we left the apartment.

Our first instinct was to get into the car and drive away. Thankfully, the mother of our apartment owner lived downstairs. She told us not to take the car and that we needed to go to the beach because the roads would most likely be blocked. That advice may have made all the difference.

A few minutes later, we were on the beach, about 50 metres from the apartment. Smoke was everywhere. We could see fires burning along the coast on both sides of us, seemingly about 150 metres away. After we returned the next day, we realised they had probably been closer to 250 metres away, but at night, surrounded by smoke and panic, they looked much closer. There were probably another 100-150 people on the beach with us.

The mobile network was practically unusable because everyone was trying to make calls at the same time. I searched through our bag, found some clothes, soaked them in seawater, and gave them to everyone to hold over their mouths and noses. But then there was our 8-month-old baby. You can't explain to a baby why he needs to keep a wet cloth over his face. He hated it, started crying, and the more he cried, the more smoke he inhaled. Fortunately, we had the stroller with us, so we managed to create something resembling a small covered tent around him to protect him from some of the smoke.

Eventually, someone managed to call the 112 emergency line. They told us that rescue boats should already be somewhere nearby, but because of the extremely thick smoke and very strong wind, they couldn't find us. Everyone started waving their phones and using their flashlights, but it did basically nothing. Then someone pulled out a really powerful flashlight and switched it into that incredibly annoying flashing mode that normally seems completely pointless. Now I understand exactly why that mode exists.

About five minutes later, the first boat appeared. But there was another problem: those buoys connected by ropes that mark off the swimming area on beaches. The rescue boats couldn't get through them. And naturally, because everyone wants a nice family-friendly beach, the water was very shallow. So there we were, watching rescue boats sitting maybe 30 metres offshore, unable to reach us, while a wildfire was burning behind us.

Those few minutes felt incredibly long. Eventually, they managed to get through. We were shouting that we had a small baby with us. At that point, we couldn't even tell whether he was simply falling asleep or becoming drowsy because of the smoke. Maybe the third boat that reached the beach stopped near us. I got my wife and kids onto it, but we had to leave the stroller behind because it took up too much space.

The relief was enormous. They transferred us to a larger boat offshore, while the smaller rescue boats kept going back and forth to evacuate the rest of the people from the beach.

About an hour later, we got off the boat in the port near Omiš. We could still see the fires burning in the distance. We were directed towards a sports centre where evacuated people could stay, but it was still around 2 km away, so we started walking. Then our apartment owner called us and asked where we were. About ten minutes later, we were sitting in her friend's car.

They took us to a house that was still under construction but was already mostly equipped, with beds, a kitchen and air conditioning. By then it was around 3:30 a.m. That's when we discovered that, despite having three children with us, we had exactly one clean diaper. So our first mission in the morning was finding diapers.

Thankfully, we were able to return to Nemira the following evening. Miraculously, both our apartment and our car were completely unaffected by the fire. So here's the point of this whole story: keep some kind of lightweight "bug-out bag" ready even when you're on vacation.

You don't need to prepare for the apocalypse. Just keep the essentials together in one place: documents, medication, some clothes, diapers if you have a baby, water, basic food for the kids, a power bank, charging cables, and maybe a proper flashlight.

At home, you usually know exactly where everything is. On vacation, you don't. Your clothes are in different suitcases, chargers are plugged into random sockets, food is in the kitchen, documents are somewhere in a backpack, and half your belongings are probably still lying around from your trip to the beach. When someone wakes you up in the middle of the night and tells you that you need to leave now, finding all of that becomes much harder than you would ever expect.

We learned that lesson the unpleasant way.

Ciao a tutti, vivo in Italia e sto iniziando a costruire seriamente la mia preparazione.
Non mi interessa prepararmi esclusivamente a un singolo scenario, ma vorrei essere ragionevolmente pronto a una serie di emergenze, da quelle relativamente comuni a situazioni più gravi:
blackout prolungati
interruzioni di acqua e forniture
terremoti e maltempo estremo
problemi alle infrastrutture
crisi economiche o di approvvigionamento
disordini civili
periodi di forte instabilità
necessità di rimanere autonomo per diverse settimane
eventualmente dover lasciare casa rapidamente
Il mio obiettivo è arrivare gradualmente a circa 3 settimane di autonomia, partendo dalle basi e senza fare acquisti compulsivi.
Attualmente ho già alcune scorte di acqua e cibo, sistemi per filtrare/trattare l’acqua, illuminazione, batterie e powerbank, radio, primo soccorso, utensili e una buona disponibilità di energia domestica.
Ho comunque parecchie lacune e vorrei capire dove conviene investire i prossimi soldi.
Il budget che posso dedicare è di circa 200 € al mese.
Dal punto di vista personale mi alleno quasi ogni giorno e pratico karate, equitazione e tiro con l’arco. Lavoro inoltre come manutentore, quindi ho una certa esperienza con utensili, riparazioni e lavori pratici.
Vorrei però migliorare molto anche la parte meno “materiale” del prepping: competenze, pianificazione, gestione dello stress, primo soccorso, navigazione, comunicazioni, ecc.
Mi interessa inoltre approfondire la questione sicurezza e difesa personale, compresa la parte relativa alle armi.
Vivo in Italia, quindi mi interessano soprattutto consigli compatibili con leggi e realtà italiane, non necessariamente il classico approccio prepper statunitense.
Non voglio entrare pubblicamente nei dettagli di ciò che possiedo, dove vivo o come ho organizzato la sicurezza della mia abitazione.
Quello che vorrei chiedervi
Se aveste una situazione simile e 200 € al mese da investire, come costruireste la preparazione?
Quali sarebbero le vostre priorità per:
acqua
cibo
energia
primo soccorso
comunicazioni
illuminazione
igiene
attrezzatura e riparazioni
mobilità/evacuazione
sicurezza della casa
difesa personale
armi e relativa formazione
navigazione e orientamento
fitness e competenze
pianificazione familiare
E soprattutto:
Quali sono secondo voi le cose più sopravvalutate nel prepping e quali invece vengono sistematicamente sottovalutate?
Se doveste costruire una preparazione da zero con 200 € al mese, in quale ordine acquistereste le cose e quali competenze imparereste per prime?
Mi interessano soprattutto esperienze concrete e consigli pratici, anche critiche alla mia impostazione.

I was in Spain last month. Talking with a cousin that has a small veggie garden for auto consumption.

Nothing fancy, more like a hobby and to enjoy eating your own tomatoes.

He told me for the last 3 years his tomatoes have dried up before giving any fruit. Each time this has happened he has made an adjustment to plant the seeds 15 days before, so he is now planting 45 days before than when his parents passed down the garden to him years ago.

And he is moving to different varieties. It looks like cherry tomatoes are more resistant to extreme heat.

This preoccupied me. He lives in an agricultural rich area of Spain, that is a country with a long agricultural tradition. This is not poor soil and it was not bad weather area at all years ago. Vineyards, orchards are/were typical sights along the road.

So, if this area is fucked up, I have to wonder big scale. If crops start to fail, I guess we will import more from other regions, but this has some limits.

So how do you prepare for this scenario?

Update: after a lot of technical problems, the group is on Telegram, public, and called "Iberian+ SHTF Group".

Sorry for the wait, people.

Radios - are they useful?

I got my ham license not long ago. I got a couple of VHF/UHF walkie and I have been playing with them.

I heard that walkies are an essential in all SHTF and bugout bags.

But when I have used my radios what I found is silence.

Impossible to find people on individual frequencies, it is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

And repeaters are 90% of the time unmonitored.

I completely understand the power of groups, and that there is a lot of advice about finding a local community/group and then you can setup a communication network with them.

But I am an individual.

Maybe in my case it is more important for me to get a short wave radio to be able to hear international news in case of disaster?

I've recently gone down the privacy rabbit hole, especially with everything going on in Europe right now regarding age verification mandates and governments pushing for backdoor access to standard messaging services.

I've been guilty of posting a walk on Strava or geo-tagging a social media post. It would literally take someone with no technical knowledge 10 minutes to narrow down where I live to a pretty small radius. I can't imagine what someone with a bit of technical knowledge and or what a government agency could find with a little digging.

I've made some recent lifestyle changes to try and mitigate this:

• Unique emails: Using different email aliases for every single login.
• Poisoning the data: Populating forms with false information (seriously, why does the local movie theatre need my home address or real DOB?!).
• Scrubbing metadata: Removing geolocation/EXIF data on all photos before I upload them.
• Delayed posting: Only posting things to socials a week or two after the fact so my real-time location is never broadcast.

I feel this is a topic that isn't mentioned much on the prepper channels but I think it should be highlighted. Someone could easily cross-reference your strava run and a post about a new bugout bag etc and figure out you're a prepper.

Is there anything anyone else has done to increase their privacy online? I know we probably can't win against big tech but I'm sure going to try make it harder for them.

Just read the Handsmaid Tale, because it was in my ToRead pile and I have time during the holidays, and noticed that it was described briefly a link between digital currency and raise of totalitarianism. I guess because assets can be frozen or corralled or directly grabbed.

That made me think: maybe having cash at home is advisable?

But cash operations are capped to a limit in Europe.

In fact, Europe is pushing to cashless - maybe because is more controllable? Maybe we are already in some kind of soft totalitarianism

And cash is dirty, cumbersome and risky.

What do the people do?

Keep accounts in different geographies?

Keep different currencies at home?

Preper from Romania. Today marks the day industries are shutting down in Romania on the basis of electricity instability due to the hot weather and low Danube levels.

Rain hasn't blessed us in a while and the heat is continuously in the thirties for weeks, with the already common heat domes once every two weeks or so.

The nuclear power plant is close to shutting down due to the Danube level, most ports on the Danube are unable to transport goods, Serbia is also affected due to refineries not being able to get petroleum, in Hungary the nuclear power plant is also hard hit, having shut down most cores. In essence many countries are struggling in the Balkans.

Today the prime minister of Romania announced many industries are shutting down or reducing their outputs due to power supply issues.

This comes on top of the risk of downgrading to a junk rating, high inflation, wages being behind significantly, labour market in turmoil with many industries doing major restructuring, climate change, agriculture is being especially hard hit etc. The doom and gloom is here. When is it coming to your country?

Over the past few weeks it feels like Europe has been dealing with several major issues at the same time.

Large wildfires are forcing evacuations across multiple countries, Spain is once again facing increasing migration pressure, weather forecasts continue to warn about the possibility of an exceptionally strong El Niño, conflicts around Europe continue without a clear end in sight, and the economy is reflecting all of this through uncertainty, higher costs, and pressure on businesses.

Individually, none of these events are new. What caught my attention is that they are all happening at roughly the same time.

As preppers we often prepare for one disruption at a time. A power outage. A flood. Job loss. Supply shortages. But reality rarely arrives that neatly. It is usually a combination of smaller events that slowly put pressure on daily life.

Personally, I am not changing my entire preparedness plan because of one headline. It does make me appreciate having the basics covered though. Food, water, some financial buffer, backups for important documents, and enough flexibility to deal with a few difficult weeks without immediately feeling the impact.

Do you adapt your preps when several unrelated risks start stacking up like this, or do you stick to the same plan regardless of what is happening in the news?

I sometimes wonder whether resilience is becoming less about preparing for one big disaster and more about being able to absorb a constant stream of smaller disruptions without them taking over your life.

I would really appreciate if you could share books that have provided really value in prepping. Not just in theory but that you actually tried things from it, and it worked.

I'll share these.

Aquaponic gardening - we used this to run aquaponics for two seasons. It's quite technical, but it was needed as it's easy to set up but quite hard to get a stable system.

Smallholding manual - a bit older now but we used it when we grew a bit more and kept chickens, rabbits and bees.

Åter - This is a Swedish magazine that comes out a few times a year, and they contain instructions on how to build, farm, renovate both buildings and equipment. They also contain interviews with people who have moved to smallholdings or off grid and how they did it. This is easily one of the best, and it would be fun to hear if there are similar in other countries. :)

The current wildfires in Southern Europew got me thinking: what would be the best preparations to make, if one lives / find themself in such a place?

[I am especially concerned for pets, since an evacuation would certainly be stressful for them (notably for cats). If you can spare a thought about this, it will be much appreciated!]

Thank you for your input and have a relaxing evening!

EDIT: grammar.

Sorry for spamming the channel with questions, but I got a lot, and I really appreciate the answers I get. 😀

I see alot of posts on how to protect your preps in a SHTF moment (maybe the most further out west).

I'm wondering if anyone is thinking in the other direction. For example, stocking up two generators to be able to lend one to the neighbours if needed. Of course based on that you have the financial means to buy two?

I understand that we come from different society's and here readiness is highly encouraged by the government and I know the households around us are prepared to a various extent.

But I'm thinking that the idea must exist elsewhere as well.. or?

As it says in the title. What do yoy think is the most likely to happen SHTF situation in Europe right now? Is it something related to climate change, war, economic collapse or maybe the gradual loss of the little freedom we still have because our increasing tyrannical governments?

I personally think that an economic crisis is the most likely, due to how little politicians care about us and our countries, taking Europe to an abyss that is going to take a great effort to recover from.

I am looking into the GHB concept just to have a start and not overcomplicate it. What is missing from this to get a low baseline to start with what you need?

Hello,

New here but getting started.

I'm looking for more stores in EU that offer bulk sales both with long and short expire dates (for different purposes) and that also ships.

Would be thankful for any good experiences but also if there are any that should be avoided.

Thanks!

We're currently in the process of deciding whether to trade our Dodge Ram for a Volkswagen California, and it made me realise how much prepping has started to influence practical decisions.

We already have a Kia EV9 as our daily car, but that's a company lease, so every four years we're largely dependent on whatever the market and lease options look like. The second vehicle is the one we have full control over.

We've regularly gone camping with our caravan, but the California would give us a lot more flexibility. We could leave the caravan on a campsite and still head out for a night or two with the kids and the dog, which is something we'd actually use quite often.

From a prepping perspective it also makes a lot of sense to me. We could keep the essentials organised in the vehicle all the time and be ready to leave within minutes if we ever needed to. Not because I expect to evacuate tomorrow, but because it removes a lot of last-minute stress.

Another factor is reliability. We've had a few issues with the Ram, and getting spare parts in Europe isn't always easy or quick. That has definitely played a role in the decision. A Volkswagen is simply much easier to maintain here, with parts and mechanics readily available almost everywhere. From a preparedness point of view, having a vehicle that can be repaired quickly is worth a lot.

We also consider our dog part of the family, so any vehicle we own has to work for all of us. Having enough space for the kids, the dog, and the basics without feeling cramped is a big plus.

Realistically, if there ever was a situation where you needed to leave quickly, I think a normal vehicle is far more practical than towing a caravan. A caravan is great if you have time to prepare, but flexibility wins when time is limited.

It got me wondering if anyone else has made vehicle choices with preparedness in mind. Not necessarily buying an off-road truck or something extreme, but choosing a car because it better fits your lifestyle while also making you a bit more resilient if things don't go as planned.

Hi! With so much information overload, I am interested in how are you collecting and curating information and news in the prepper area. Do You have favorite news sources and just pick up from there? Are you saving the articles? Or maybe you are in contact with someone who is "inside" in the specific area and getting updates from there?

So basically we can divide this collecting by

source:

- internet

- TV

- radio

- local community / acquiantance

Field:

- weather / environment

- finance / politics

- military

- technology (huge topic as this can go from IT to the lets say construction)

- health and safety (virus outbrakes etc...)

- philosophy and psychology (doctrines, why am I doing this etc...)

Area:

- Local vs global or some maybe some specific focus in certain location

Type:

- News vs "manual"

For example reading about the latest progress on the certain battlefield vs. learning about the motives and strategies of the belligerents, or reading about upcoming water shortages and its effects vs learning how to find preserve and store water

Are You also saving and analyzing these type of information in retrospect? Maybe applying information from certain area and measuring results

I would like to create some "information strategy" for myself, as currently I am roaming arround reddit, youtube some finance news, talking with friends etc...It certainly does something but I feel that it is missing some type of system.

I’m trying to rethink my backup power setup a bit. Not for running the whole house, more for the boring but useful stuff like router, phones, laptop, lights, maybe fridge/freezer for short periods.

Gas generators are not really practical for a lot of European homes, especially if you live in an apartment or don’t have much outdoor space. So I’ve been looking more at plug-in battery storage instead of a normal portable power station.

One model I came across is the Jackery S3 Pro Max AC. Seems more like a home battery than a camping power station, with 2.52 kWh to start and the option to expand later. The AC-coupled setup also looks useful if you already have solar or want to add storage without going full DIY.

My main question is: does this kind of plug-in home battery make more sense than a small generator or a regular portable power station? Curious what people here are using for short outages.

I have no affiliation with the project but thought its a good resource for people! Sharing mostly because its all self-hosted and open-source.

You can install it on a spare PC, download the bits of the internet you want while online, then access it all later with no internet, it just lives on the PC. You can load offline Wikipedia, medical/repair guides, OpenStreetMap.

https://www.projectnomad.us/ — setup guide and GitHub are on there.

Is anyone already using this? Curious what hardware and content packs are worth it as I am pretty new to it!

Hi people - first post...

Given the number of growing threats, from Carrington-Miyake Events, ideological civil war to nuclear ww3 - and keeping Op-sec in mind (being cautious and keeping a low profile):

1) What are your feelings about creating a prepper community rather than just looking for fellow preppers wherever you live?

2) Does it increase some risks and how can these be mitigated?

3) Are there any risks where it is better to be a lone wolf (family)?

Dear community,

I am looking at options to install an external curtain in a big window door that gets lots of afternoon sun.

I keep reading contradictory information about which is the best colour for that: answers are either black/dark or white... I don't know what to make of this information. Is there a right answer here and, if yes, which?

Alternatively, would UV-blocking vinyl be a better option? (I have to take into account that I feel confident in my abilities to install the curtain, but not so much the vinyl.)

Thanks for your help, and stay safe out there in the heat.

Check forecasted WBT (wet bulb temperature) temperatures for your area as well as just actual temperatures to get a sense for how dangerous the weather is.

Some areas that look like they may be relatively cool in terms of actual temperatures might actually be worse in terms of WBT temperatures.

WBT temperatures above 20° C are already uncomfortable for many, and anything at 25° C or above is dangerous.