Fire In Paradise: An American Tragedy, Gee and Anguiano - B

     The Paradise wildfire of 2018 was the deadliest in America in over a century. The California town was totally destroyed. Paradise lies 150 miles northeast of San Francisco in the Sierra Nevada foothills. About 42,000 people lived in and around the town. Pre-contact native Americans used fire to pare, cleanse and rejuvenate the forests. Once the US Fire Service began suppressing fires in the west, the landscape changed. Where once there might have been dozens of tress per acre, there now were hundreds. Climate change has raised temperatures in a region suffering from extended drought. California has entered an epoch of 'megafires'.

     That November, the winds came blowing in from the deserts to the east of the Sierra's. On the morning of the 8th, a PG&E wire fell to the ground. A fire started in heavy brush in a steep,  inaccessible ravine. Within an hour, it was moving fast and wreaking havoc. As ash and smoke soon covered the town, evacuations began. Some elected to stay behind and just about everybody else jammed the two roads leading out of town. Houses were burned, roads buckled, all utilities including water failed, cars were burned out hulks, the sky was black, and embers were flying everywhere. Paradise was doomed. By the end of the day, the fire was 31 square miles. It was emitting heat at 1500 degrees Fahrenheit.

     The next day, the body count began. People were learning that their loved ones were found in cars, in their houses and in one instance, in a wheelchair waiting outside for help. The fire had been so intense that it was not possible to identify human remains. People had been cremated.

     Seventeen days after the fire began, extensive rain officially contained the fire. In early December, people were allowed to return to Paradise where 18,804 homes, businesses and other structures were no more. Eighty-six people were dead. FEMA announced it would take a year to clear the fire debris in town.  Many chose to move on. For PG&E, the likely cause of the fire, 2019 would see a wave of litigation that led to it filing bankruptcy. Between insurance and PG&E settlements, enough money flowed into Paradise that rebuilding soon began. The senior officers at CalFire thought the area was too susceptible to fire and acknowledged that they personally would not live in the area. California remains stymied by drought, climate change and an ever expanding forest fire season.