Roughly 300 residents participate in the exercise, revealing valuable lessons on traffic flow, alerts and community preparedness

By Damian Mann for Ashland.news

Ashland’s first-ever evacuation drill on a chilly Saturday morning went off without major hitches, offering residents a chance to try the emergency Interstate 5 on-ramp on North Mountain Avenue.

More than two dozen emergency crews and international observers helped during the drill, including a professor from London.

Starting at 9:30 a.m., some 300 residents and their pets arrived in about 170 vehicles at the Ashland Municipal Airport from all parts of the city. Two cyclists and two pedestrians also showed up.

“It was very easy,” said Millie Anderson, who drove down from the Tolman Creek Road area and was in the first vehicle to arrive. “I thought there was going to be a long line of cars.”

She moved to Ashland in 2012, and she never thought about fire danger until recently. Now she worries a lot.

“I don’t enjoy the summers,” said Anderson, who recently watched “The Lost Bus,” a film about a bus driver’s effort to evacuate 22 children in the midst of the wildfire that destroyed Paradise, California.

She was one of the few residents who didn’t see the text alert when the evacuation drill started.

Kelly Burns, Ashland’s emergency management coordinator, confirmed that Anderson had earlier received a text informing her that she had signed up correctly.

“You still get an A,” he told Anderson. “We have things that we’re going to have to work through.”

Emergency supplies amid the swag

Burns led Anderson to a tent that was loaded with emergency supplies, referred to as swag. MRE, or meals ready to eat, flashlights, tiny blankets, pens and booklets explaining how to prepare for an evacuation were handed out. MREs, which some residents hadn’t tried before, were a popular item, with 160 meals in plastic pouches passed out.

Burns said this type of drill gives emergency planners a better idea of what needs to be done to prepare for a real evacuation, when Ashland streets would be clogged with traffic.

“Not many communities are able to do something like this,” he said.

Burns said the drill is useful for both residents and emergency planners to develop better strategies for evacuating the city.

“We want them to crawl before they can walk,” he said.

Kip Thomas, who lives near the golf course, decided to walk to the airport.

“It took me about 10 minutes,” he said. “I hike a lot.”

He said he’s not particularly concerned about a wildfire burning his house, noting that his yard is mostly rock and his trees are well trimmed back.

Thomas and his wife were rewarded for their walk with a bagful of swag.

During a debriefing at the end, emergency crews did notice traffic backing up on Dead Indian Memorial Road. To alleviate congestion, some vehicles were routed briefly through the Ashland Bible Church parking lot across the street from the airport entrance.

Traffic jam

Tighe O’Meara, Ashland police chief, said the biggest sticking point he saw was the backup of vehicles trying to get into the airport.

“If this was a real event, people likely wouldn’t be coming here,” he said.  Most likely, depending on the direction of the fire, residents might head to the Expo in Central Point, he said.

Vehicles queued up behind two welcome stations, and observers distributed maps so that residents could identify how they had arrived at the airport. To better handle the volume, two stations were subsequently added to deal with the long line. As residents exited, they returned their evacuation map route at a checkout booth, where more swag was passed out.
It took 80 seconds on average to explain information to four residents, and officials looked for ways to shorten their interactions.

Many residents were excited to talk to the more than two dozen people who handled the official side of the drill.

It was somewhat difficult to find a parking space, and some residents said the lettering on the directional signs wasn’t big enough or clear enough.

Participants note possible problems

A couple of residents thought it would be very difficult to navigate through Ashland in a real emergency. An intersection near the Exit 14 off-ramp was a choke point for some of the participants.

The intersection of East Main Street and North Mountain Avenue was also particularly busy, according to a team of people collecting data about the evacuation drill.

Many residents brought go bags (ready.gov/kit), which typically are loaded with food, water, a flashlight, a first-aid kit and other supplies to last for several days, as well as important documents and clothing.

About 90% of participants in the drill were older, with many bringing their dogs or cats. There weren’t many younger residents or children at the drill, and that prompted a discussion about doing more outreach.

Steve Gwynne, a professor of evacuation and pedestrian dynamics with the University of Greenwich in London, was with a team of people observing, helping and collecting data for the drill that will be shared with other at-risk communities.

Gwynne, who has worked in Canada and other areas of the world for his research, said his university agreed to fund his journey to Ashland to see how this community is preparing for possible disasters.

Two other officials participating in the drill were from Canada, which has had multiple summers of wildfires. In 2024, a wildfire destroyed a third of the picturesque town of Jasper, just north of Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies.

Such drills are rare

“This type of challenge is happening all over the world, Gwynne said. He said only a handful of cities in the U.S. have had these types of drills. He went to a smaller evacuation drill in the community of Roxborough Park, Colorado, in 2024.  

Paul Seymour, who said it was easy to navigate the emergency on-ramp at North Mountain, said the drill was much easier than the evacuation he lived through in the 2012 Colorado Springs fire.

At first, that fire was about 10 miles away from his house and he had almost a week to prepare, packing up emergency supplies as well as artwork, photos, and musical instruments.

Everything changed when he and his former wife got the alert that it was time to go. Seymour, who was about a half an hour from home at the time, called his former wife, who was driving from the house.

“Then the phone went dead,” he said. “We had a prearranged meeting place. We had decided earlier to meet at my sister’s house.”

Because they had two trucks, they were able to move a lot of supplies.

While trying to stay ahead of the fire, their fuel ran low, so they took a chance to head to the next town, and luckily, the fire didn’t head there.  

Praise for the I-5 ramp

Paige Farrell, Seymour’s current wife, said the emergency Interstate 5 on-ramp worked well and cones helped direct vehicles onto the freeway.

“It was fabulous,” she said. “We printed the evacuation map last night from Ashland.news.”

Farrell said she received the alert when the drill started, but it didn’t make a noise on her phone.

She said she’s particularly concerned about older neighbors who might have difficulty evacuating. In a real emergency, she said, she would try to contact them to see if they needed help.

Julio Ceron, a case manager for the Oregon Department of Human Services, said various agencies try to maintain contact with 2,700 older and disabled populations, particularly in times of a disaster.

Ceron said, “Every time we make those contacts, we ask, ‘What’s your plan?’”

Have a go bag and small bills

A go bag is obviously a necessity, and Ceron said he advises residents to consider other situations, such as carrying smaller bills rather than $100 bills.

In some cases, people might have to barter for a candy bar or something to eat during a prolonged emergency. If a person has only $100, that might be the cost for a candy bar, he said. “Put smaller denominations in your go bag,” he said.

Reach freelance writer Damian Mann at [email protected].

Related stories: 

Inside a wildfire evacuation plan: What to expect when it’s time to leave (Oct. 10, 2025)

Ashland to hold first-ever evacuation drill on Oct. 11 (Oct. 2, 2025)

‘What’s your plan?’: Ashlanders learn about evacuation readiness during interactive wildfire preparedness event (July 19, 2025)