During wildfires, many are evacuated with little time to collect personal items. Evacuees who depend on daily medication for ongoing medical conditions often arrive to evacuation shelters without medication and with little knowledge of what they require. This problem is reported for evacuees in the 2008 Orange County California (USA) Freeway Triangle Wildfires.

Data was obtained retrospectively from Orange County Health Care Agency records regarding people who required medication while housed in evacuation shelters. Descriptive data was analysed using SPSS 17 and STATA 11.01.

40,000 persons were evacuated during the wildfires. Sixty of the evacuees aged from 6 to 82 years were without necessary medications. Of the sixty, there were 26 females and 34 males. People requiring medication would present to a public health nurse in the shelter whom would contact the Disaster Health Officer to arrange scripts for medication. Of the 60 people, 67% were unable to contact a primary physician and 75% were able to be issued a script for needed medication. The most common prescribed medication was albuterol for asthma and lung disease, then narcotic pain relief medication and next medication for cardiovascular / hypertension conditions.

Results show that life sustaining medication was required by people housed in an evacuation shelter. These people may not have had time to retrieve necessary medication if they had to evacuate quickly or may not have had an adequate supply of medication at the time of evacuation. Thus far there has been very little published on this issue however, our results show there is a need for pre-planning on behalf of people living in wildfire prone areas who require daily medication and are at risk for sudden evacuation. Our findings also highlight the important role provided by health workers in evacuation shelters in providing assistance for medication purposes.