The nurse seated next to Jamie fidgeted, trying to make another call. Earlier that morning, her elderly uncle had picked up her sons from school and brought them back home to the house they shared on Buschmann Road. He hadn’t answered calls since then. Probably asleep, she thought. Her uncle had been one of the few to defy evacuation orders during the Humboldt Fire in 2008, preferring to spritz the house with a garden hose than suffer through the onslaught of traffic. His stubbornness had saved their family’s longtime home—but now the stakes were higher. She didn’t think he was taking this fire seriously.
She would later discover that her instincts were correct. Her uncle was fast asleep in his loft above the garage. Using a flashlight to see, her three young sons were stamping out spot fires on the lawn. They couldn’t rouse him from his bed.
The nurse had been born into one of Paradise’s oldest families. Her father, who owned a roofing company, had shingled half the town’s homes—or so he claimed. She had met Jamie and Erin through mutual friends, and over the past decade, they had grown close. Her husband was one of Jamie’s supervisors at Heritage. After Tezzrah was born, she had been one of the baby’s first visitors. She called the girl, who was about the same age as her youngest son, her “second daughter.” Now, though, the nurse was considering leaving Jamie and Tezzrah. She needed to make sure her sons were safe. Police had already forced her husband downhill with their two-year-old daughter. In his rush to pick the toddler up from daycare, he had accidentally taken his wife’s key fob, stranding her with a car she couldn’t unlock.
Now she was stuck with Jamie. He tried to calm her, but his assurances weren’t doing much good. She couldn’t stop shaking; he could tell she was making Tezzrah nervous. “I’m so sorry, Jamie, but I gotta go,” she finally said, swinging open the door. “I can’t just sit here.” She turned to say goodbye to Tezzrah, then lurched out of the car, the door latching shut. They watched as she teetered toward the road shoulder, tripping and stumbling in the darkness.
Other people cracked their car doors, too, stepping outside to see for themselves why traffic wasn’t moving. Jamie smiled at his daughter to distract her. Tezzrah stared back, her brown eyes serious. Minutes later, a sheriff’s deputy tore past them on foot, hollering: “Get out of your cars or hunker down! The fire is coming fast!” His voice was muffled by a respirator. A gold star glinted on his chest.
Jamie clambered out of his Subaru. Two of his colleagues from Heritage called to him over the gridlock, asking what he thought they should do. “He’s law enforcement, and if the fire is coming fast, then let’s just go,” Jamie yelled back. Heart pounding, he pulled the Subaru off the road and yanked his keys from the ignition. He grabbed Tezzrah’s backpack, filled with the bottled water and snacks. Tears streamed down the seven-year-old’s face as Jamie helped her from the backseat. “Daddy, are we going to die?” she asked for the second time that morning.
Jamie took a deep breath, then knelt on the concrete to look his oldest daughter straight in the eyes. “Tezzrah, you are not going to die today. I promise you that. I am your father, and I will lay down my life for you if I have to. Even if I have to carry you off this mountain, I will get you out of here.” He pulled off his puffy black hoodie, blotted at his daughter’s cheeks, then wrapped the jacket around her, telling her to cover her face with the sleeve so she wouldn’t inhale too much smoke. Then he stood up, enfolding her small hand in his. “Do not let go,” he said with a squeeze.
As they ran, Tezzrah lagged behind, unable to keep pace with a grown man. The pavement was slick with pine needles, and she skated over them in her sneakers. A nurse from Heritage ran alongside them, clinging to the facility’s chef, a woman named Jill Fassler. The nurse held on to Jill like a drowning woman, until Jill lost her patience. “You’ve gotta stop dragging me down,” Jill said, snapping at the nurse. “Let’s just keep moving.” Jamie, one lane over, tightened his grip on Tezzrah’s hand as he tugged her along. They darted past a woman leaning on her walker and two people weighted down by oversized birdcages.
A few minutes later, they hit the intersection of Wagstaff Road. Flames roared down the hillside, threatening two gas stations: American on their right, Chevron on their left. Firefighters had snapped open the lock on the front door of Needful Things, an antiques store with stucco walls and a metal roof, to create a temporary refuge. Jamie had made up his mind to reach Walgreens, farther away from the explosive gas stations, but they didn’t get far before an engine crew sent them back to the antiques store.
“I’m not going in there,” Jill said, balking at the front door. “It’s crammed with hundreds of people and animals. We won’t have a chance if we get stuck in a building like that.” Jamie couldn’t see a better option. He left her outside and guided the nurse and his daughter indoors, away from the din of the wildfire. The store was cold and dark, with concrete floors and black cabinets cluttered with tea sets and porcelain dolls. The store was not meant to hold so many people. Items kept getting elbowed off the shelves. If only the owner knew what was happening in his shop right now, Jamie thought.
They pushed their way toward the back of the store, through a doorway leading to the break room. It was packed with old DVDs and boxy floor fans. An antique Chico road sign—East 9th—rested against the wall. Dust had gathered in the corners, and the air reeked of Pine-Sol. Tezzrah eyed a gold necklace, studded with jewels and locked inside a glass counter. While she wondered idly if it was the most expensive item for sale, Jamie grabbed water jugs from a cooler and examined some tightly rolled Persian carpets. If they needed to, they could douse themselves with water and crawl under the rugs for protection.
Hearing a familiar voice outside, Jamie lifted the metal delivery door on the loading dock to reveal Jill standing outside. She had nowhere else to go.
“I thought that was you!” Jamie said, smiling. They chatted for a half hour, surrounded by the gold jewelry and an onrushing wildfire. Tezzrah ate a Lunchables snack from her backpack, and Jamie used the bathroom. He had almost begun to believe that this was a safe place after all—until firefighters shouted for everyone to move again. More than a hundred people stampeded out of the building. Jamie helped Tezzrah to the front of the store. In the parking lot, he saw that evacuees were crowding onto two passenger vans, ordered from Chico by first responders. Each was built to accommodate no more than sixteen people. As seats filled, people were forced to stand. With surprise, he saw his colleague the nurse scramble on board—the last one to enter before the doors swished shut.
Jamie and Jill looked at each other, trying to decide whether to follow on the vans’ return trip. “I don’t want to get on that bus,” Jamie said. “I’d have more control if I was behind the wheel.” “Then let’s go back and get our cars,” she replied.
The wave of fire hadn’t yet overtaken the lanes of abandoned vehicles on the Skyway, though it was close. Embers whirled between the rows of parked cars as tiny patches of flame whooshed bigger. Jamie sprinted uphill, wheezing in the smoke, with Tezzrah and Jill about twenty-five yards behind. It dawned on him that he would have to carry Tezzrah. On a gravel clearance near Reliance Propane, Jill slowed down and called out to Jamie, suggesting he forge ahead without them. He’d get uphill faster that way. Then he could pick up his Subaru and swing back around to pick them up. “If you trust me enough, I’ll stay here with Tezzrah. We’re holding you up.” Drunk on adrenaline, he agreed. “Whatever you do, do not leave her,” he told Jill. “Even if they try to make you get on the bus, don’t do it. I’ll find you.” Then, kneeling in front of his daughter once again, he handed Tezzrah her backpack and gave her a tight hug. As he turned to leave, he saw Jill wrap her arms around the seven-year-old and squish the girl’s face into her soft abdomen to protect her eyes from the flying ash and debris. Jill, in turn, watched Jamie’s figure grow fuzzy in the smoke until he vanished into the unknown.
Every few minutes, a firefighter would
walk over to ask if they were okay. Jill would explain that they were waiting for someone. “You’re okay here for now,” one of the firefighters told her. “But I wouldn’t stay much longer.” He pointed to the propane factory across the street, giving her a meaningful look.
Folded into Jill’s arms, Tezzrah couldn’t see much. She perked up at the sound of each passing fire engine, asking if it was her father. Ten minutes passed, then twenty, then half an hour. Hot air swirled around them, and explosions ricocheted in the distance. Paradise was a hunting town, and ammunition supplies were discharging as they caught fire. Occasionally, a driver managed to extricate their vehicle from the abandoned gridlock and make their way downhill. “I hope my daddy is okay,” Tezzrah said. “He is going to be just fine,” Jill replied, hoping she was right.
A firefighter approached them for the final time. “Hey, the last round of vans is leaving in five minutes,” he said. They couldn’t wait much longer.
* * *
—
BACK ON CHLOE COURT, three propane tanks ruptured in the neighbor’s yard, hissing like rattlesnakes and shooting flames ten feet high. On the opposite side of the yard, tires detonated beneath the burning ambulance. Her calls complete, Tammy felt flushed with purpose. She needed to take care of her patients. Looking up, she spotted Paradise Fire chief David Hawks’s SUV parked in the cul-de-sac. She tumbled out of the ambulance and sprinted toward him, her fellow nurses in tow.
She wanted to yank open the passenger door of his vehicle and climb inside its soft interior, where it seemed safe. Hawks made it clear that that wasn’t an option. “You have to defend the house,” he said firmly. He was trying to speak while listening to the radio, as he had been doing for the last half hour. His tone was distant; he was about to leave Chloe Court to help his colleagues, who were trapped with more than 150 residents at the intersection of Pentz and Bille roads. His mind was elsewhere. Still, Tammy looked to Hawks for answers, as if he had any.
“That house is your only chance of survival,” he continued. “I want you to rake up pine needles. I want you to spray down the roof with the garden hose. I want you to fill up buckets of water and fill the bathtub.”
“What if the house catches on fire?” Tammy asked.
“Listen, I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said. “I can’t tell you if we’ll make it. This fire is crazy. But I do know that your only chance of surviving this fire is protecting that house, which will protect you.”
“We are going to die here.”
“You are not going to die here,” he replied. “If the house catches fire, or you catch fire, find a rocky place and lay low. Roll around to put the flames out.”
“I don’t like the options you’re giving me,” Tammy said, smiling helplessly. The absurdity of the situation was almost funny.
“There aren’t any good options,” Hawks replied. “But you cannot just sit here.”
Something inside Tammy clicked: There was no decision to make, she realized. Suddenly businesslike, Tammy turned away from Hawks’s SUV and walked toward the house with her fellow nurses. She looked back. Hawks rolled through the stop sign and turned north on Pentz Road.
* * *
—
IN THE BACKYARD, Tammy shuddered as she grabbed another handful of pine needles, the bristles sharp against her palms. Her fingers smelled like air freshener. At least they’ll have a clean yard when they get home, she thought. Nearby, her fellow nurse Crissy beat at the wooden patio with a broomstick, smothering the fiery wreckage as it landed. There weren’t many tools in the garage: a three-pronged rake, a leaf blower, a few buckets. With the fire chief’s departure, they had to figure things out on their own, opting to split the property into sections, with paramedic Mike Castro, twenty-eight, standing on the roof as lookout.
Born in Los Angeles, Castro had been raised by his grandparents on a 20-acre almond orchard in the town of Orland. He had decided to train as a paramedic after an off-duty medic had resuscitated his friend following a jet ski accident. (The friend later died from his injuries.) Now Castro tried to stay calm. The stucco house had green hoses hooked up to three different spigots, each yielding a trickle of water. He barked out orders when he noticed new flames flaring after a gust of wind. His colleagues sprayed the embers with water. Castro learned to sense the wildfire’s movement. The stilling of the air was the most foreboding. It portended a wind shift, the high pressure inverting the low pressure, then the arrival of sparks from a completely new direction.
On the ground, his crew flipped lawn furniture, dog beds, and anything else even remotely flammable onto a concrete patio in the neighbor’s backyard. Firebrands had struck the other paramedic in the face, freckling his cheeks with second-degree burns. The paramedic tried to pray, when he could remember to, and recalled with grim amusement his father’s favorite maxim: “There are no atheists in foxholes.”
A spark pirouetted into the flowerbed, and pediatrician David Russell stamped it out. He nearly collided with Tammy. “Hey! It’s good to see you,” he said. “Sorry it’s under these conditions. But you’re doing a great job.” Russell was soaking wet, having sprayed himself with the hose so his khakis and soft-shell jacket wouldn’t catch fire. Even his shoes were sopping. He gave Tammy a hug, dampening the front of her pink scrubs. He towered over her, lanky and impossibly thin, bordering on skeletal. “What are you doing here?” Tammy asked, incredulous. He had left Feather River hospital in his truck—not with the ambulances. He had tried to escape, he explained, but his vehicle had run out of gas. He pointed to its mangled frame, just behind the crippled ambulance. The thirty-four-year-old father of two had a third child on the way. His wife was thirty-nine weeks and four days pregnant. Where his family was, he wasn’t sure. “Well, keep it up,” he told Tammy, distracted.
She returned to the garage to comfort the patients, whispering to them that they were going to be all right. She held the hand of the brain bleed patient. The elderly woman seemed to be fading: Her face was limp and gray, her frizzy hair forming a halo around her head. The C-section mother tried to lighten the mood by cracking jokes, even as fear overwhelmed them. “We’ll be out of here soon,” Tammy promised. “My boyfriend is a police officer. Maybe he’ll be able to get to us.” She had left a voicemail on his phone earlier; he was resting after working the night shift and hadn’t picked up.
While Tammy had been with Chief Hawks, the paramedics had scoured the house for supplies. The scene was eerie, as if the homeowners were going to return any second to finish putting away their groceries. A crossed-out shopping list lay askew on the counter. Stuffed animals were scattered across the carpet, and finger paintings were stuck to the fridge. One EMT had decided to fill the bathtub in the guest bedroom with cold water, in case the garden hoses lost pressure. Castro had different priorities. If they were going to spend the night here, he would need a drink. The paramedic selected a red wine blend from the well-stocked rack off the kitchen and set it aside. “Thank you so much for letting us in your house,” he wrote on a scrap of paper. “We sought refuge here. If you find this, thank you. We love you. P.S. We stole a bottle of wine.”
As Tammy soothed her patients in the garage, two men materialized out of nowhere, instantly recognizable as newcomers among the charcoal-faced ambulance crew. Unbeknownst to those on Chloe Court, Hawks had radioed for help before leaving—and members of the Butte County Search and Rescue, or SAR, team had heard the call. On their way over, the pair had seen a man—shirtless, shoeless—rocketing through traffic on a rusty bike. He seemed to be strung out on some kind of drug. He’d probably be the only one of them to make it out alive, the men had joked.
“Who are you?” the older of the two paramedics asked, puzzled by the duo’s sudden appearance. “I’m with SAR,” one of the newcomers responded. “Heard over the radio that you guys were trapped. Man, it sounds like war up here. I’m not in the military, but those
propane tanks, and the ambulance tires, and the oxygen tanks in the back…they sound like a fighter jet on the Fourth of July.”
The two men were stockbrokers in Chico. They volunteered for law enforcement in their free time, exchanging their tailored suits for green uniforms when needed. The program trained them to dangle beneath helicopters, swim across surging rivers, and wield a gun. When a disaster happened “off pavement,” as they referred to unincorporated Butte County, they were sent in. It was only their second wildfire, but the two men busied themselves helping out. The water main near the front door of the house had burst, flooding the grass and depressurizing the hoses. The ambulance crew handed up buckets of water to the roof, which Castro used to drench the fuming shingles. By now, nearly a dozen people were seeking shelter in the cul-de-sac. A system had emerged out of the chaos, and everyone was feeling more confident.
Within the hour, Hawks returned in his SUV. “How are things looking?” Tammy asked, hopeful. “Not good,” he replied. His face was knotted with worry. He had been trying to direct a helicopter to Chloe Court to rescue them. The aircraft only worked if it could beat the air into submission, though, and with the dangerous winds, the air would likely beat the helicopter down instead. At this point, Hawks said, the safest option was to leave. As he talked with the ambulance crew, a fire engine from Chico pulled up to save the house that had become a shelter, summoned by Hawks’s earlier requests on the radio. The mood instantly lightened, the possibility of evacuation now seeming a surety.
Hawks instructed Tammy to secure the two frailest patients—the quadriplegic and the man on a ventilator—into the one remaining ambulance. She and the other two nurses would ride in SAR’s Ford truck, along with the C-section mother and the brain bleed patient. But before they split up, the group paused to snap a selfie on Tammy’s pink iPhone. In the photo, Chardonnay, the emergency room nurse, peers in from the left, her dark hair slicked back in a ponytail. Below her, a respirator shields all but Tammy’s blue eyes. A man from the Search and Rescue team grins behind her, alongside two of the ambulance crew members and pediatrician Russell. The walls of the house are barely visible above their heads, the metal ladder they’d used to scale the roof crossing a corner of the frame. Their faces are relaxed, their smiles huge—a portrait of relief.
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