In the event I have to leave my home in a hurry - living beings (people and animals) are my first priority however the understanding with my kid and my mum is that a "small bag only" with their personal effects will be taken. They decide what goes into their small bag (and it's their responsibility to ensure that it's ready to go when we are)...I would take our photo's & essential papers only (which are already packed in a small bag which hangs on the back of my bedroom door). I'd be interested in other views on this topic.

Great idea with the bag at the back of the door. I have 2 bug out bags more or less ready. Have not organized the paper work yet. Add to my list of things to get done.

What about if you have a weeks notice or more? Would it make a difference? Things like gifts or kids made or the family silverwear that has been in the family for generations, paintings or art done by a family member. Awards that your parents or grandparents received.

Because I live so close to the bush I'm not likely to get much notice to bug out. If I can see or smell smoke then I can check to see if it's a DSE scheduled burn...if it's not a planned burn we are out of here. The little town I live in is completely surrounded by state forest with only two exit routes (which may or may not be clogged with traffic in the event of a bushfire). Re the silverware etc passed down from grandparents...they were all battlers working the land (soldier settlement tracts) so there wasn't much to be passed on....I accepted a small hand sewn tapestry (that was going to be thrown out) but politely declined any further "goodies". Apart from my books there really isn't that much in my home that I couldn't live without (all my camping/survival equipment would be in my car, plus my animals and the two other people who depend on me) so in the event that my house burned to the ground during a bushfire ....it would be covered by insurance. I'd miss my little garden though!

I have made copy's of all important documents and keep them in my BOB. As well I made another set of copies and sent them to Manitoba to my inlaws for safe keeping. In the event of a house fire, disaster, whatever I know that at least my doc's are safe. As far as family treasures, all I really care about is photo's. Any family air looms, antiques things like that I can do without if the occasion comes. All I really care about is my family and my preps.

One more thing I need to do still is make several digital copies of all my photo's on hard drives and then store one at the inlaws and had another in my home to keep current. If things get bad enough that I can't access my hard drives then I probably don't care about my photo's anymore:)

This is a great topic. Things I have never thought about. When you think you will be staying in one place, no matter what - it doesn't seem to be important.

I think I better get our fireproof safe from under our bed upstairs and put it with the emergency kits. Putting the pictures on a disk or two is also a good idea and putting that in the safe. Most of our legal papers are there, passports, etc.

My sister and brother-in-law lost all the family pictures in an apartment fire. She was devastated because she was the unofficial historian and it was all lost. While it would be nice to have those pictures, they aren't a necessity. We have living people and animals to take care of. However, I will get onto storing the pictures on a disc or disc drive. They will be important only if we can use the computer at a later date. If we can't... well, we do what we can.

Documents

DH and I both have copies of all of our important documents in our respective emergency kits, along with scanned copies saved to USB thumb drives. Our USB drives are password protected, and we keep them on us at all times (pocket for DH, purse for me).

Photos

We have all of our historical family photos and family tree information scanned and uploaded to a family history blog (for family sharing) and saved on 2 portable hard drives (one is backup) as well as on writable CDs/DVDs, the most important ones are also saved on our USB thumb drives mentioned above.

We have all of our modern family photos (wedding, kids growing up, holidays etc.) saved on the same blog and portable hard drives and continue to add to the collection. Again, we have the "highlights" saved on our USB thumb drives.

If we had the time in a real emergency situation, we'd grab our two "highlight" family photo albums and the hard drives along with the home laptop, but at least we always have the USB drives on us for the truly important things. DH carries a laptop for work, so it is always in its case with its cord (unless in use) and he would bring it with him during any sort of evacuation.

Memorabilia

For us, the "stuff" in life is transitory. "You can't take it with you" is our motto, and "stuff" just helps us live our everyday life.

Yes, I have my Grandma's china set and some of her jewelry, and we each have personal "treasures" that we've collected over the years, but in a true emergency there is no way to bring any of it along if we need to evacuate. Our kids are teens and always have their iPods on them, containing all of their music and personal photos, and we feel confident that knowing they have this would make tough times easier for them.

Our emergency kits each contain "Power Monkey" and solar battery rechargers, which would buy us some time for our electronic gear, but we would seriously ration "on" time for any unnecessary gadgets during an emergency.

We're not prepping for "the end of the world" but rather trying to live our lives responsibly/sustainably along with being prepared for emergencies like flooding, wild fires etc. I'm sure planning takes on a different dimension for people who don't think they'll get back to ordinary life after the "disaster", but that's where we're coming from.