During the evacuation one year ago, I never thought I’d die in the fire. I only understood how marginal was my escape while watching two Camp Fire documentaries this week.1 I realized that I’d left at the literal last minute. I never considered I’d not make it out. My confidence wasn’t because the situation looked safe or easy but because I had a determined focus on progressing forward. (My evacuation full story is here: When Guy Fieri shows up, you know the disaster is serious - my life in the Camp Fire)
Each day this week, I grew more divided with part of me here in my new home, new biome, and an increasing part of me in my burned home/biome. The one-year anniversary’s approach pulled me into memories of my final, safe, carefree day at home on November 7, 2018. Last night I went to sleep in a new bed in a new house in northwest California vividly aware that one year ago was the last night in my bed in my house. I’m pleased to be amidst the redwoods, but I still cling to the other home and biome that’s gone now.
For me and 50,000 others, the fire divided our lives into Before and After. Over the past year, we’ve all participated in a world defining event. Paradise, the town, is a reference point now, even among people far away. In a group for birders around the world, someone asked a poster where he lived and he wrote “Sierras, 50 miles from Paradise,” and no one questioned it. Articles appear — This town may be the next Paradise — and everyone knows that doesn’t mean a garden of earthly delights. One year ago, Paradise defined the wildfire component of our climate crisis.
Initially, the fire spread 80 acres per minute and went from its origin in Pulga (6.33 am), tore across Concow, and entered the east side of Paradise, covering 7.5 miles in 1.5 hours. At the same time the fire moved steadily west, 100 mph winds blew burning embers ahead of the fire, creating new flame pockets. By noon, the entire town had been lost.
Two weeks after the fire started, it was extinguished by a rain storm. In the interim, fire fighters had thwarted the fire’s advancement into other populated areas (Berry Creek, upper Magalia, Sterling City, and eastern Chico), but within the fire zone of 240 square miles, there was little control.
If you are willing to have Camp Fire images burned into your mind, watch this short trailer for the Netflix documentary released last week.1
In the full documentary, a nurse at Feather River Hospital who helped stuff patients into staff cars as flames ignited around the hospital says “It wasn’t a normal evacuation that we’ve been planning and rehearsing.” It wasn’t normal for anyone, not for fire fighters and government officials, nor for residents. No one was prepared for this catastrophe.
My evacuation began at 8:52 am, 20 minutes after my daughter woke me up. My basic essentials were ready to sweep into a backpack and my three parrots still asleep in their travel cages. Most of that 20 minutes was occupied with carrying the parrots out to the car one by one and buckling their seat belts. At that time, I was concerned about frantic drivers hitting my car rather than my car catching on fire even though I could see flames and hear explosions nearby.
I drove out my dead end road (Nunneley) that was nearly void of traffic. Two blocks from home, the road intersected another, giving me the option to turn south towards Pearson Road. I thought to join others for safety because Pearson is a main road, but didn’t. Now I know people on that portion of Pearson were trapped in their cars or fleeing on foot. Some didn’t make it. As I pressed forward, only two cars drove past me, coming in the road (presumably to fetch possessions from their homes). I momentarily wondered if I were headed the wrong way as I’d heard no official information, but the world behind my car was aflame with explosions bursting noisily at intervals.
My road ended at a major road (Clark) packed with motionless vehicles. It took 10 minutes for an opening so I could join the traffic jam. I crept ahead one block in 15 minutes, then turned onto another stretch of Pearson to head towards Skyway, the main road out of town. Inching forward, I heard an announcement broadcast from a police car in the middle of the snarled traffic telling everyone to drive out Clark Road (the road I’d just left). I instantly made a U-turn and the line of traffic opened for me.
Thus, I was near the front of the traffic jam fleeing out Clark Road. Leaping flames were only on the east edge of the road and hadn’t ignited the west side nearest my car. My intense focus on driving away and not being hit by falling trees or other vehicles kept me from noticing the strong winds and flying embers. I didn’t worry about my car catching on fire, but it is dotted with holes burned through the white paint. I wasn’t wearing a coat because the air was warm and in my disaster confusion I thought it was summer. Because of the darkness, I also thought it was the middle of the night. Watching the PBS documentary, I learned the temperature was about 40oF in Paradise when the fire started. My car’s clock reported the time as 9:25 am.
Between my home and driving off the ridge down Clark Road, I saw horrors I’ve not told to anyone. I’ve heard first-hand stories I’ll also never share. No one has counted the wildlife who died in the fire, but the animal rescuers who began working 2 hours before I left home say 6 to 8,000 family pets were lost, while 12,000 were counted as saved, one way or another. Nearly nine months after the fire, the human death toll was pegged at 85 people found in their homes and cars, on foot trying to escape, or sitting outside in a lawn chair holding a hose.
A Butte county official featured in the PBS documentary (at 25.381) talks about the situation after the last major fire here, the 2008 Butte Lightning Complex from Concow to Pulga). The county Board of Supervisors told Paradise to improve the town’s evacuation abilities by widening the exit roads. The official asserts there was no way to evacuate the entire town at once unless the county obtained $20 million or more to invest in new roads, plus it would hard be to get the funding. So Plan A was DOA . . . what was Plan B?
Lessons learned in the 2008 fire resulted in paving and widening a dirt road north (extension of Skyway), higher into the Sierra, that then connects to the next ridge north (Forest Ranch) and back to the Sacramento Valley into Chico. But people from Paradise couldn’t use that evacuation route because the fire blocked it. The other exit routes hadn’t been changed.
Within 4 or 5 hours after the fire started 7.5 air miles east of Paradise, all roads out of town (including the one I came down) were fully blocked by fire and abandoned vehicles. People trapped with fire fighters further upslope couldn’t progress down Skyway due to fire and abandoned vehicles. They sheltered in place, lying face down on a big concrete slab near an exploding propane storage yard. Those people were in the northern tip of Paradise (see town limits on the map below). The road I drove down is the opposite corner (southwest) — the narrow pan-handle shaped notch.
One year later most people who remained in the area are living in RVs, tents, friends’ homes, and rental homes outside the fire scar or on their burned and cleared parcels. Many still need assistance with basic survival needs like food, potable water, heat in winter and fans/AC in summer, beds, clothes, transportation, and jobs. Fortunately, some organizations and individuals are still funding this assistance although it’s not enough.
People who left the area are on their own. Thirty thousand people left after the Camp Fire (23,000 from Paradise and 7,000 from Concow and Magalia) although some went no further than adjacent towns in the Sacramento Valley (Chico, Oroville, Yuba City, Red Bluff). About 3,000 people returned to Paradise (approximately 1,400 homes survived the fire). The homeless population in Chico grew by 16 percent in the past year. Of the homeless people counted in Chico’s spring 2019 census who agreed to share why they are homeless, 23 percent were Camp Fire survivors who’d never been homeless before.
In Paradise, planning for the rebuild began almost immediately. Over the six month period after the disaster, stricter construction measures to resist fire were proposed. Some ultimately were approved (e.g., indoor sprinklers for homes) and added to the town’s building code. Others, like covers for gutters to reduce the risk of embers igniting fallen leaves and twigs, were excluded. But the Camp Fire destroyed the water delivery system so those sprinklers wouldn’t have helped. Homes burned primarily from millions of blown embers and flaming debris landing on flammable material of the homes. It wasn’t a wall of fire sweeping through town it was thousands of separate fires growing together. Each new building requirement adds to the cost of a new home. Now, many people who lived in Paradise are financially barred from rebuilding even with the cost-saving of skipping some measures. How does the town balance the safety needs of residents, the costs inherent in securing that safety, and the displaced residents who wish to return?3
Camp Fire exploded from infrastructure problems (PG&E transmission tower, emergency notification system, evacuation routes, and limited fire resilient residential planning) coupled with climate chaos. In response to lessons learned during recent disasters, the County Sheriff’s office established a new staff position whose primary focus is major emergencies and preparedness. I wonder what authority they have in establishing building and development requirements and evacuation plans. Are they far-thinking enough to address the unthinkable? Will their authority and imagination make a significant difference in the next disaster?
Communities and biomes burn, flood, and blow apart, glaciers melt, coastlines flood. This is happening in many parts of the world, despite the media’s current fixation on is California habitable. Australia’s fire season now overlaps fires in the western US.4 Everywhere has potential to be a type of Paradise due to climate crisis consequences.
On all scales, individuals and governments need to prepare for far-fetched disaster conditions, like a fire that moves 8 acres a minute while pumping out an ember blizzard blown by 100 mph winds. What areas are worth the investment to rebuild communities? How can we help people who are forced to move away? Who is eligible to rebuilt in the disaster footprint and what kind of assistance should they receive?
Over the past year of climate chaos refuge life, I’ve grown a bone-deep realization that I’m among the first wave of climate change disaster survivors. I’m one of the lucky survivors with options but I still have PTSD and unspeakable memories. How we will interact as a society when most of us have disaster PTSD and a subset of these people are living in sketchy conditions. Who has the vision and the authority to determine proactive measures that reduce risk and how would these measures be implemented? What criteria define areas as uninhabitable? How are disaster funds distributed for resettlement? Who pays?
This week, scientists warned of “untold human suffering” from climate change.5
“The climate crisis has arrived and is accelerating faster than most scientists expected. It is more severe than anticipated, threatening natural ecosystems and the fate of humanity.”
Untold means “too much or too many to be counted or measured.” People who fled disasters like the Camp Fire, hurricanes Katrina, Maria, and Dorian, and unnamed other events already know untold human suffering and untold suffering of non-human animals. Paradise had a plan that was completely overwhelmed by the Camp Fire. Scientists say we need “major transformations in the ways our global society functions and interacts with natural ecosystems.”
We plan for what we can imagine. But how can governments, communities, and individuals outside each disaster imagine possibilities when survivors hold stories of untold suffering? What does the world learn from a defining event like the Camp Fire?
FOOTNOTES
1. Notable Documentaries
The Camp Fire Documentary by Golden Eagle Films, December 15, 2018
Fire in Paradise Netflix
PBS Frontline: Fire in Paradise
- 14:08, that’s my neighbor on the 911 call
- 18:10, I was awakened at 8:31am by my daughter’s phone call (my home was on the east side of Paradise)
- 19:12, approximately 8:45am — I’m loading the parrots in the car — fires are burning around the hospital about two-thirds of a mile away from my home
- 24:29, map on screen — my home was south of the n in zone 7.
- 30:17, Ultimately, people have to be responsible for their own safety. The best person to craft an evacuation plan for you, is you. Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea. At 9:31, I was driving past flames beginning to go downslope on Clark Road.
- 30:57, my home is NW of the big U in Pearson Road near Pentz Road, at the edge of the mapped flames on the upper lip of the “ravine” mentioned at 31:14.
- 32:13, Paradise had really thought about the idea of fire and evacuation and they had a plan. And the plan was completely overwhelmed by circumstances. I think those circumstances were not unprecedented. Michael Wara, Director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program at Stanford University
- 36:50, temp at the center of the fire was 1800 degrees. I didn’t wear a coat or sweater and in my confusion assumed it was summer. I also assumed it was the middle of the night because of the darkness. This scene on Pearson is downslope, about 2500 feet from my home.
- 39:48, The fire’s progressed all through town. . . By noon we conceded that the town had basically burned down.
- 45:06, The transportation system would only hold so many vehicles, and we were trying to put more vehicles on the road than it could hold.
- 47:06, Man is it crazy to have an image like that in your head.
2. Timeline | Breaking down Nov. 8 — the day the Camp Fire Sparked by Robin Epley, Paradise Post, Nov 7, 2019
3. Forged in Fire: California’s Lessons for a Green New Deal by Naomi Klein, The Intercept, Nov 7, 2019
I have been in many disaster-struck communities and know how quickly the gale-force of emotion these events churn up can direct itself at the closest available target . . .
… the kind of stress that is in the air in the parts of California recently scorched by fire, as well as in the communities that have welcomed thousands of newly homeless neighbors to towns now bursting at the seams. The intersecting hardships experienced by so many in the region also explain why, days before the one-year anniversary of the deadly Camp Fire that burned down Paradise and killed 86 people, local politicians in neighboring Chico unveiled a plan calling for the small city to adopt its own Green New Deal.
Like its national inspiration, the Chico Green New Deal framework marries rapid decarbonization targets with calls for more affordable housing; a safe and sustainable food system; investments in “clean, 21st century” public transit; green jobs creation, including projects earmarked for the poorest residents; and much more . . .
...the contribution now coming from humble Chico — a scrappy northern California college town with a population of approximately 100,000 — may be the most politically significant. Because the Chico Green New Deal is based directly on this region’s hard-won experience of living through the 2018 inferno; it was forged, quite literally, in fire.
4. Australia and California wildfire season now overlap
5. Climate crisis: 11,000 scientists warn of ‘untold suffering’ by Damian Carrington, The Guardian, Nov. 5, 2019
The world’s people face “untold suffering due to the climate crisis” unless there are major transformations to global society, according to a stark warning from more than 11,000 scientists.
“We declare clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency,” it states. “To secure a sustainable future, we must change how we live. [This] entails major transformations in the ways our global society functions and interacts with natural ecosystems.”