NAPA, CALIFORNIA — Linda Cantey, an aerospace engineer and consultant based in northern California, helped develop the Fort wildfire shelter—a $60,000 above-ground bunker designed for people who cannot evacuate during fast-moving wildfires. The shelter emerged from her experience surviving the 2017 Atlas Wildfire in Napa, California, which burned more than 51,000 acres, destroyed 783 structures, and killed six people.
Cantey and her husband escaped the fire, but an elderly couple on their street died when a power failure prevented them from opening their garage door to flee. "We were sound asleep when that thing came ripping through our neighbourhood," Linda Cantey recalled. "By the time somebody called our home phone and woke us up, the entire canyon was full of flames, and we could see across the canyon that every single house over there was already on fire."
After the disaster, Cantey joined local fire safety advisory boards and consulted with a mining company that specializes in underground refuge chambers to adapt similar principles for wildfire protection. The result was the Fort bunker, a shed-like, above-ground refuge that can hold up to eight people and their valuables with breathable air for four hours. It is built with fire-proof doors and materials and can withstand flames and temperatures up to 2,000°F for three hours.
"If it wasn't for Linda, we wouldn't have built this, I don't think," said Josh Behling, president of Wildfire Safety Systems and one of the inventors of the Fort. The bunker is intended as a last resort for those unable to evacuate and is manufactured at a Utah facility, with delivery taking approximately five weeks after an order is placed.
Cantey and the Fort CEO volunteered to sit inside the bunker during a real-fire test, with firefighters on standby. She says that helping to innovate wildfire safety solutions has aided her own healing process. The Fort was launched in April and has two show units available, with Wildfire Safety Systems anticipating about 150 orders per year initially.