As the McKinney fire barreled up the Klamath River in the last week, Billy Simms received an alert that told him it was time to get out.
It wasn’t from an announcement by Siskiyou County officials or a text message from the emergency alert system they run — he got no such notice. Billy’s warning came from the sky, in the form of golf ball-sized embers.
“I’ve never been more scared,” Simms, 65, said. “And I don’t get scared.”
