I have no idea because enough of it hasn't been sorted out yet. Many questions left unanswered. If you put yourself in those individuals situation at the time logically you wouldn't think they were trying to divert you toward the ocean but from the sounds of it, and it's preliminary, that's what they may have been trying to do because they knew that people would naturally turn towards the mountains that were supposedly all ingulfed in fire. The supposedly part needs more clarification as to were or were there not any roads they could have directed people towards where there was no fire moving through forested area. In a situation like that if you keep driving around and around in a circle you will end up in a pit of fire as everything around continues to be engulfed in it...and you are not gripping onto the reality they may have been directing them toward the only way out, the ocean, because you'd think that would be absurd but not in a situation like this where every minute counted.

It's really hard to say but it will be interesting in the end to find out. If people had minutes to get out you'd assume law enforcement had only minutes to decide how to get everyone out, the ocean ended up the only logical solution?

The one thing that has sort of sit on my mind about it is that how it came about that no one noticed the blazes until it was to late. Was the whole town asleep? I'd find that hard to believe.