Napa nonprofit installing new ‘Beacon Boxes’ to help guide crews during wildfire emergencies 

NAPA, Calif. (KGO) — In the North Bay, wildfire season is fast approaching, and firefighters in Napa County are preparing with a new tool designed to guide them to the right roads and water sources during a fire emergency. It’s called a Beacon Box.

“There’s two ways of opening these with a code or breakaway lock,” said Erick Hernandez from Cal Fire.

Hernandez showed what’s inside a big red locker off Sage Canyon Road in St. Helena. Its contents could save homes and lives.

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“This map will give us some numbers. We know we have the location of 78 structures and commercial wineries,” Hernandez said.

A Beacon Box contains vital maps, flash drives and information to help guide first responders to the right roads, gates and water sources — especially mutual aid crews arriving from out of town and unfamiliar with the area.

“Typically, when we send engines up without this information they’re running blind. They’re not familiar with the area. It’s going to take them a minute to identify ‘do we have proper turnaround or hydrant systems?'” Hernandez said.

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The community nonprofit Napa Firewise Foundation is expanding the Beacon Box network to 24 locations to cover every battalion unit in the county. The weatherproof field stations will be prepositioned at firecritical sites, many of them historic staging areas such as those used during the LNU Lightning Complex Fire in 2020, which destroyed hundreds of homes.

“It’s really important for firefighters to know what’s out there before they get into an area under fire conditions,” said Mike Wilson from the Napa Firewise Foundation.

Wilson said that along with realtime fire information, the Beacon Boxes can help reduce uncertainty and get fire crews where they need to be, saving precious time.

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“Anything to get information that’s always the key and a disaster. Communication makes an incident more manageable and lower the unknown and stress the public feels,” Wilson added.

Beacon Boxes can cost about $4,000 each. Napa Firewise is raising donations from the public and community sponsors to help cover costs. More information is available at https://napafirewise.org/.