Preparing for home fires

Bill N - August 23, 2023

Advice

Hi all! With the recent wildfires in Maui, I realized that I never made any plans to help preserve the originals of important documents at home from a fire. While they are backed up to the cloud, I think it’s still important to save the originals if possible. I purchased a small fireproof safe (the recommended choice from the NY Times Wirecutter site; the review link is below), but I’ve noticed this doesn’t seem to be a topic covered by many prepper sites.

Anyone else have suggestions or recommendations for this issue?

https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-fireproof-document-safe/

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Backing up to the cloud is a very good move. You should also have copies (physical and digital/USB) in your evacuation pack. Detailed recommendations for this are in the “Documents” section of the bug out bag list.

https://theprepared.com/bug-out-bags/guides/bug-out-bag-list/#docs

I would be far less concerned about originals versus copies because you can always request another “original” from the agency that issued that document.

 

Could you provide some links or suggestions for newbies to cloud back ups?  I recognize the need but have never done it.  Thanks!

 

“Could you provide some links or suggestions for newbies to cloud back ups?”

Passwords should go in a dedicated “password manager”. Everything else should go in regular cloud storage. I use 1Password for a password manager ($3/month) and Google Drive for regular cloud storage (free / ad-supported).

https://1password.com/

https://www.google.com/drive/

(Note: I’ve been considering switch to Proton for privacy but am not yet familiar enough to recommend it.)

Whatever document you’re trying to backup, you first need to get it into a file on your computer. If you can’t get a PDF version of that document, another option is to take a picture of your physical document. Then copy that file into whatever cloud drive account you decide on.

The “documents” section of this bug out bag list has specific recommendations for which documents should be included in your backup.

https://theprepared.com/bug-out-bags/guides/bug-out-bag-list/#docs

 

“Could you provide some links or suggestions for newbies to cloud back ups?”

I forgot to mention the number 1 recommendation for anyone doing cloud backups for the first time: Don’t lose your password! However much work you put into setting all this up, you’ll lose all of it if you forget the password to your cloud storage account.