The evacuation order
just came. Now what?
Wildfire or flood, the hour between the Alberta Emergency Alert and backing out of the driveway is enough — but only if the decisions were already made. Here's the checklist.
Alberta · Updated June 2026 · ~6 min read
Alert is "get ready." Order is "go."
An evacuation alert means an event is developing and you should be ready to leave on short notice — fuel up, pack, stage your documents. An evacuation order means leave now, by the route they give you. When an order lands, the decisions are already made for you. The only question left is whether you're ready to move.
During an active event, the order from the Alberta Emergency Management Agency (AEMA), the RCMP, or your municipality is the order — always. This checklist is what you do before the alert, and in the hour after.
The 60-minute triage.
People who lose things in evacuations don't lose them in the fire — they lose them in the first fifteen minutes, standing in the kitchen opening a drawer for no reason. Work the order, not your panic:
- 01People and pets first. Everyone accounted for, everyone in shoes, medications in hand.
- 02Grab the document bag. The one you already packed (see below). Don't assemble it now.
- 03Load the go-bags and the vehicle. Tiered, so you're not triaging at 2 a.m.
- 04House walkdown. Gas off if told to, unplug what matters, close windows, lights on so crews can see the house.
- 05Out the chosen route. Primary, or secondary if the primary's blocked. Don't improvise toward the smoke.
The tiered go-bag + the documents.
Pre-decide what gets grabbed at each time tier, so the hour runs on muscle memory:
- Five-minute tier — people, pets, medications, phones + chargers, the document bag, keys, wallet.
- Thirty-minute tier — clothes, food and water, sleeping bags, chargers, cash, comfort items for kids.
- Sixty-minute tier — valuables, hard drives, irreplaceables, anything else the vehicle can hold.
- The documents that must leave with you — ID, passports, insurance policies, property papers, medical and prescription info, and a phone full of photos of every room and the contents of every drawer. (Those photos are your insurance claim later.)
Vehicle rule: never let the tank drop below half during fire or flood season. A jerry can in the garage and a year-round trunk kit turn a scramble into a routine.
Reception centres and registration.
When you're out, register at the reception centre your municipality directs you to — even if you're staying with family. Registration is how the province knows you're safe and how you reach support and re-entry information later. Then settle in for the wait, and stay informed through official channels rather than doomscrolling.
The families who get out clean aren't the prepared ones — they're the rehearsed ones. The plan you've actually walked through beats the perfect plan you've only thought about.
Re-entry is its own hazard.
"The order has lifted" doesn't always mean it's safe to walk back in. Power, gas, water, structural damage, and spoiled food all need checking first. Have a re-entry inspection order before you go — and don't let relief rush you past a real danger.
This article is the map.
The manual is the toolkit.
We turned the whole hour into one field manual — built from real Alberta evacuations. The tiered go-bag checklist, a fillable family evacuation plan, a document grab-list spreadsheet, the house-walkdown and re-entry worksheets, and the route binder. Print it, stick it in the cupboard, hope you never need it.
This guide provides general information about household evacuation preparedness in Alberta. It is NOT emergency-management advice. During an active event, always follow the instructions of AEMA, the RCMP, and your municipality. Routes, reception centres, and protocols change — official orders override anything written here.