**5. Conclusions**

Overall, the recent history of neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) evacuations due to wildfires in Northern and Southern California provided an opportunity to learn from past disaster experience and to be better prepared for the future. NICU teams have solved some issues faced during wildfire disaster, improving future disaster response. However, there is much more improvement that needs to be done. We hope our findings aid and inspire NICUs to reevaluate and possibly change their disaster preparedness protocol for evacuating due to a California wildfire. Health care team members are heroes. We need the system of disaster preparedness to improve, so our selfless medical community and vulnerable NICU patients have hope, resources, and practices to stay safe and healthy.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, H.C.L.; data curation, A.L.M.; formal analysis, A.L.M.; funding acquisition, H.C.L.; investigation, A.L.M.; methodology, A.L.M. and H.C.L.; resources, H.C.L.; supervision, H.C.L.; writing—original draft, A.L.M. and H.C.L.; writing—review and editing, A.L.M., R.S.C. and H.C.L. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** The project described in this publication was supported by the Maternal and Child Health Research Institute (Stanford University). This project was also supported by gran<sup>t</sup> number P30HS023506 from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

**Acknowledgments:** The authors wish to thank CPQCC and the health care team members for participating in the Learning from Disaster Experience key informant interview as part of the Qualitative Study on Patient Safety and for the valuable information they shared with us, including providing insight into their experience and changes their NICU made and are making as a result of their wildfire response. We would also like to give a special thanks to Grace Villarin Dueñas and Lillian Sie for their assistance with this project.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

### **Appendix A : Interview Protocol**
