Jami Hill and Tonya Nogales hugged underneath the covered patio at the Basecamp Bar and Grill in Sunriver on Tuesday afternoon. They drew back and took deep breaths. Then they started dancing.

Not out of joy — out of nerves.

Residents of the nearby neighborhood had gathered at the restaurant, checking their phones, talking and gazing at a growing cloud of smoke above the line of ponderosa pines across the street, waiting to hear whether they would have to flee from a wildfire swirling toward them in the Deschutes National Forest.

Sunriver residents spent Tuesday under an order to prepare belongings after the Little Lava Fire grew by thousands of acres on Monday.

Rain was in the forecast for Wednesday, but not before a fire-stoking afternoon of moderate winds and high temperatures.

An update came at 5:30 p.m. — be set to get out at a moment’s notice.

The dancing stopped. Hill frantically phoned her four children to get home and rushed to her blue Subaru.

“My adrenaline is pumping,” Nogales said.

No strangers to fire

Sights and smells of wildfire smoke and ash are no stranger to the community of about 1,500 year-round residents south of Bend.

But never before had Sunriver been under notice to be ready to flee from fire.

At least not since Nathan DuPuis moved to Sunriver in 2001. He sat down at the restaurant earlier Tuesday afternoon to check fire updates on his phone. The Deschutes National Forest is within sight of his driveway, where he runs an automotive shop.

“I’m a little bit nervous,” he said with the area still under lower, Level 1 evacuation levels.

He went home when levels increased to Level 2 later.

His angst was shared by Jerry Kuchinski, who moved to the Sunriver area from California nine years ago. A paved walking path separates his backyard from an undeveloped lot and the Deschutes National Forest.

The area of national forest just down the road from the neighborhood was under orders to leave immediately — Level 3.

“It’s scary. It’s very scary. You can lose a lot of stuff,” he said, standing on his roof earlier Tuesday. He had climbed up to knock off a layer of pine needles with a leaf blower.

He raked the brown needles into neat piles on his green lawn, and did the same for his neighbors, who are second homeowners and out of town.

The yard work wasn’t easy while breathing in smoky air, he said. But should wind blow burning embers onto his roof, gutters or lawn, Kuchinski’s house will be less likely to flare up than it was before. Tuesday was the first time Kuchinski had performed work of that nature.

It’s been a point of emphasis for his homeowner’s association, River Meadows, to educate people about defensible space. Meetings on the subject are coupled with visits and advice from fire prevention specialists, while a community burn pile nearby offers a place to get rid of extra brush each spring.

Sunriver has been a Firewise Community since 2012, according to the Sunriver Owners Association. It’s one of seven areas in Deschutes County with a Community Wildfire Protection Plan, which guides strategies for reducing fire fuels on public and private land and emergency preparedness.

Sunriver is perhaps the community most prepared for wildfire of any in Deschutes County, according to Randy Schneider, a recently-elected member of the Sunriver owner’s association board. The board has adopted strict regulations for keeping burning fuels clear from private property, while the group works to take care of public places.

The scare of the Little Lava Fire has spurred some to take the issue even more seriously, said Schneider via phone Tuesday afternoon as he readied to potentially leave his home.

Ready to go

Should the fire put homes at risk, Sunriver residents have two routes to leave the area to U.S. Highway 97: S. Century Drive, the community’s main artery, and Cottonwood Road farther north.

If an order to leave immediately was in place, all of the Sunriver Police Department would take action to help people move out, said Katie Warren, an executive assistant with the department. The evacuation would be relatively straightforward for full-time residents as compared to peak tourist season, when up to 20,000 visitors swell the resort community.

Joyce and Jeff Carpenter, Sunriver residents of two years, said they feel more confident in their ability to flee Sunriver from wildfire than when they lived in Bend. The couple is familiar with emergency preparedness from dealing with earthquake threats while living in Alaska.

In the past few years, the threat of wildfire has become more apparent. When they got the alert the fire had grown Monday evening, they turned to their big blue emergency preparedness binder — important documents and a printed list of essentials they would need to collect.

“We already knew what we were going to do,” Joyce Patterson said. “You don’t have to think about what you need; you just pull out the list and it’s ready to go.”

They packed up medicines, clothes, dog food and their 5-year-old Cavalier King Charles spaniel, Willow. In a separate car they put valuable artwork they had collected from across the world and drove it to a friend’s house in Bend. They planned to return that evening.

“We’ll be ready to go if something changes,” Jeff Carpenter said. “The Level 1 notification said there may not be another notification (before Level 3), so you need to be ready to go.”

Fire update: Little Lava Fire grows west of Sunriver