Who is the incident base?

We survived the detour around the PCT and Chips Fire near Belden, CA in Plumas National Forest. Almost all of our fellow hikers decided to jump on a bus and ride to Chester vs. taking the walking route with is. That was absolutely the safe route to go. Instead we wandered along 3 miles of highway, followed by 7 miles of narrow winding mountain roads, and then we finished off with 15 miles of forest roads meandering along a man made reservoir in the middle of nowhere. For the most part the walking was ok until we started climbing the mountain and night started settling in on us. Ash began to fall from the sky as we hit the ridge line. We were also stopped by locals who said that we were crazy for walking and for not packing a few firearms due to the fact that these here woods are loaded with momma bears with cubs and mountain lions with babies. Somehow we survived all of those animals
and heavily armed locals and woke up the next day to an orange sky and an ash covered tent with 13 miles left to walk.