The notice was dispatched to 2,765 phone numbers: Of the 2,765 numbers, 1,163 weren’t reached, equaling 42 percent of the residents. Of the 6,189 alerts from the first alert, 2,927 numbers weren’t reached, equaling 47 percent of the residents.
her cellphone buzzed with a call from Rick Silva: Rick Silva, “Missed Birthday Dinners,” Paradise Post, November 8, 2019, paradisepost.com/2019/11/08/silva-missed-birthday-dinners/.
CHAPTER 6: ABANDONING THE HOSPITAL
Interviews: Chris and Rachelle Sanders; Keven Page; Feather River hospital chief financial officer Ryan Ashlock, nurse Tammy Ferguson, patient Stephen Arrington, groundskeeper Tom Paxton, intensive care unit director Allyn Pierce, medical assistant J. D. Rasmussen, respiratory supervisor Chris Lephart, charge nurse Ed Beltran, and nurse supervisors Bev Roberson and Sarah McCain; Cal Fire battalion chief Bill Lopez and captain Rick Manson; California Highway Patrol commander Brandon Straw.
“boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion”: Between 1940 and 2005, about eighty major BLEVEs claimed more than a thousand lives and injured more than ten thousand people. Tasneem Abbasi and S. A. Abbasi, “The Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapour Explosion (BLEVE): Mechanism, Consequence Assessment, Management,” Journal of Hazardous Materials 141 (2007), pp. 489–519.
60 to 80 percent of the town’s thoroughfares: The main purpose of access roads is to reach homes in neighborhoods. Town of Paradise, Municipal Service Review, Paradise: August 2007, p. 3.4-1.
increased travel times by as much as fifty-four seconds: According to the presentation, northbound travel times on the Skyway increased by about twenty-nine seconds, while peak travel times (between 5 and 6 p.m.) increased by fifty-four seconds. A video of the presentation can be found at youtu.be/TwryVczSDyk. Town of Paradise, Downtown Paradise Safety Project, Paradise: 2015, p. 65.
This might be a lost cause, their captain thought: He was Cal Fire captain Rick Manson.
According to a 2007 report, a third of the town’s public roadways: Of the town’s 98.5 center-line miles of public streets, 31.8 miles were considered to need repairs beyond routine maintenance, equaling 32 percent. Town of Paradise, Municipal Service Review, pp. 3.4–4.
179 burning vehicles: The 19,000 vehicles recovered included trailers, farming equipment, and boats—anything with some type of vehicle identification number. It took officers nine months to identify all of the burned vehicles. Of the 179 vehicles on evacuation routes, 48 were recovered from Bille Road, 40 from the Skyway, 42 from Pearson Road, and 7 from Clark Road. Brandon Straw (California Highway Patrol Commander), in discussion with the author, January 16, 2020.
OBSERVATION: A FATAL BREATH
Interviews: Feather River hospital cardiopulmonary manager Ben Mullin and respiratory supervisor Chris Lephart.
CHAPTER 7: A BLIZZARD OF EMBERS
Interviews: Paradise Fire chief David Hawks; Cal Fire division chief John Messina; Paradise Town Council candidate Julian Martinez and town clerk Dina Volenski; Feather River hospital nurses Tammy Ferguson and Crissy Foster.
Honey Run Covered Bridge: The bridge was the first of its kind to connect Paradise to Butte Creek Canyon. More information can be found on the website of the Honey Run Covered Bridge Association (HRCBA): hrcoveredbridge.org.
(Records would later show): John Messina, Cal Fire division chief, in discussion with the author, August 13, 2019.
“rate of spread” card: According to Hawks’s card, “moderate” was any wildfire less than 1 mph, or 80 feet per minute. “Dangerous” was 1 to 3 mph, or 80 to 264 feet per minute. And “critical spread” was anything greater than 3 mph, or 264 feet per minute.
which he presented at a Town Council meeting: That meeting can be viewed on the Town of Paradise’s website at livestream.com/townofparadise/events/8325375/videos/178945109.
who had recently died in the Carr Fire: Lizzie Johnson, “150 Minutes of Hell,” San Francisco Chronicle, December 12, 2018, projects.sfchronicle.com/2018/carr-fire-tornado/.
twice the land area of New York City: New York City covers 205,000 acres, according to its Department of City Planning. The Mendocino Complex Fire burned 459,000 acres.
$1 billion worth of new road projects: “Jody Jones Retiring as Caltrans District 3 Director,” California Department of Transportation, June 23, 2014, accessed May 26, 2020, eterritorialdispatch.blogspot.com/2014/06/jody-jones-retiring-as-caltrans.html.
couldn’t handle the crush of a mass exodus: This included 1,348 mobile homes and 64 recreational vehicles.
only 3,700 vehicles an hour could evacuate: The memo continued: “An evacuation of this magnitude certainly will not happen on its own. It will require very careful planning, a good communication system, proper preparation, close cooperation between citizens and all the involved agencies, proper execution, and more than a little bit of luck.” Dennis J. Schmidt, Public Works director/town engineer, memo to Charles L. Rough, Jr., town manager, June 11, 2002.
THE FIRE: LEAPING THE WEST BRANCH
Interviews: President of the Association for Fire Ecology Chris Dicus; University of Maryland Department of Fire Protection Engineering associate professor Michael J. Gollner.
two dozen embers accumulated: James Urban et al., “Temperature Measurement of Glowing Embers with Color Pyrometry,” Fire Technology, February 2019.
A small pile of firebrands: Michael J. Gollner in discussion with the author, August 29, 2019.
CHAPTER 8: SAVING TEZZRAH
Interviews: Jamie and Tezzrah Mansanares; Heritage executive administrator Sonya Meyer, nurse Trudy Vaughn, and chef Jill Fassler; Butte County director of social services Shelby Boston; Butte County Emergency Services officer Cindi Dunsmoor.
begged a nurse to run back inside: The nurse was Trudy Vaughn.
built to handle sixteen hundred vehicles an hour: Schmidt memo to Rough, June 11, 2002.
elderly adults were twice as likely to die: “Older Adults,” National Fire Protection Association, accessed June 10, 2020, nfpa.org/Public-Education/Fire-causes-and-risks/Specific-groups-at-risk/Older-adults.
About 25 percent of residents were older than sixty-five: U.S. Census Bureau, Quick Facts, 2010, census.gov/quickfacts/CA.
compared to 14 percent statewide: Ibid.
the disability rate was nearly twice the state average: In 2015, 10.6 percent of Californians had a disability, compared to 25 percent in Paradise. Laura Newberry, “Poor, Elderly and Too Frail to Escape: Paradise Fire Killed the Most Vulnerable Residents,” Los Angeles Times, February 10, 2019, latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-camp-fire-seniors-mobile-home-deaths-20190209-story.html.
three women were left behind: The three women were Teresa Ammons, Dorothy Mack, and Helen Pace.
enacted building regulations for mobile homes: “Manufactured Housing and Standards,” U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, accessed June 9, 2020, hud.gov/program_offices/housing/rmra/mhs/mhshome.
The first was the In Home Support Services program: The director of social services was Shelby Boston. You may remember that she is married to Cal Fire battalion chief Gus Boston.
The Ridge had an enrollment of 960: Shelby Boston in discussion with the author, April 1, 2019.
SNAP was more of a voluntary educational program: Though people who weren’t in the county’s In Home Support Services program could sign up for SNAP, most hadn’t. In a 2019 report, the state auditor found that everyone from the Ridge in the SNAP program had come from IHSS. Auditor of the State of California, California Is Not Adequately Prepared, pp. 39–40.
twenty-page document, drafted by: San Diego County, “Emergency Preparedness: Taking Responsibility for Your Safety; Tips for People with Disabilities and Activity Limitations,” 2019.
the highway had been paved in 2013: Steve
Schoonover, “Upper Ridge Escape Route Handles First Test,” Chico Enterprise-Record, November 12, 2018, chicoer.com/2018/11/12/upper-ridge-escape-route-handles-first-test/.
was going to hitch a ride with them: The colleague was Shay Hindry, a licensed vocational nurse.
OBSERVATION: PARADISE IRRIGATION DISTRICT
Interviews: Paradise Irrigation District manager Kevin Phillips and workers Ken Capra and Jeremy Gentry.
CHAPTER 9: THE LOST BUS
Interviews: Kevin McKay; Ponderosa Elementary School teachers Mary Ludwig and Abbie Davis; student Rowan Stovall and her mother, Nicole Alderman; Paradise Ridge Fire Safe Council chairman Phil John; Butte County Fire Safe Council director Calli-Jane Deanda.
capable of accommodating nine hundred cars per hour: Schmidt memo to Rough, June 11, 2002.
The Butte County General Plan for 2030: “Health and Safety Element,” in Butte County General Plan for 2030, pp. 11–45, buttecounty.net/dds/Planning/Butte-County-General-Plan.
comprised one full-time employee: Calli-Jane Deanda, director, Butte County Fire Safe Council, in discussion with the author, March 19, 2019.
Two of the school district’s assistant superintendents: The men were Tom Taylor and David McCready.
CHAPTER 10: THE BEST SPOT TO DIE
Interviews: Cal Fire captain Sean Norman.
A thirty-seven-year-old city fire: Johnson, “150 Minutes of Hell.”
killed twenty-three people: Bettina Boxall, “The Same Elements That Made the Thomas Fire Such a Monster Also Created Deadly Debris Flows,” Los Angeles Times, January 12, 2018, latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-mudflows-science-montecito-20180112-story.html.
The town was similar to Paradise: Kurtis Alexander, “Fearful of Being the Next Paradise, Grass Valley Confronts Its Fire Vulnerability,” San Francisco Chronicle, June 30, 2019, sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/Fearful-of-being-the-next-Paradise-Grass-Valley-14061525.php.
taken an aggressive stance toward wildfires: Timothy Egan, “Teddy Roosevelt and the ‘Burn’ That Saved Forests,” Fresh Air, National Public Radio, Philadelphia, September 10, 2010, npr.org/transcripts/129750575.
The agency’s “ranger” title was swapped for “chief”: Stephen Pyne, California: A Fire Survey (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2016), p. 38.
fire season had increased by seventy-eight days: Ken Pimlott, “Wildfire Resilience in California,” California Adaptation Forum, 2020, californiaadaptationforum.org/2018/02/15/wildfire-resilience-in-california/.
Ken Pimlott cautioned in a 2016 memo: The memo was prepared to support Cal Fire’s efforts to stop wildfires by conducting prescribed burning and defensible space inspections. They were a minor effort—20,000 acres of prescribed burning and 15,000 acres of treatment projects including chipping, fuel breaks, and mechanical thinning. Ken Pimlott to State of California Natural Resources Agency, September 27, 2016, documentcloud.org/documents/4176986-2016-Fuels-Reduction-Memo.html.
Across the state, 189 communities: Peter Fimrite, “California Neighborhoods Prepare for Wildfires with Help from Federal Program,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 7, 2019, sfchronicle.com/news/article/California-neighborhoods-prepare-for-wildfires-14077846.php.
Cal Fire’s expenditures had skyrocketed to $947 million: Judy Lin, “Should California Buy Disaster Insurance?” KQED, February 17, 2019, kqed.org/news/11727057/should-california-buy-disaster-insurance.
within the first two months of its fiscal year: For the eighth time in ten years, Cal Fire was forced to dip into its budget reserves to put out wildfires in 2018. “It’s a reasonable request,” said Assemblyman Phil Ting, D–San Francisco, chair of the Assembly Budget Committee. “Unfortunately, it seems these requests are happening every year, earlier in the year, and on a larger scale each year.” Melody Gutierrez, “Disastrous Fire Season Has Cal Fire Running Out of Money,” San Francisco Chronicle, September 6, 2018, sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Disastrous-fire-season-has-Cal-Fire-running-out-13210912.php.
blazes scorched 12.7 million acres: Lizzie Johnson, “The Heart Is Still Pumping,” San Francisco Chronicle, November 7, 2019, sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/Starting-over-A-year-after-the-Camp-Fire-14811903.php.
Jerry Brown told reporters: Scott Neuman, “California’s Gov. Brown: Wildfires Are Evidence of Changing Climate ‘in Real Time,’ ” NPR, August 2, 2018, wamu.org/story/18/08/02/californias-gov-brown-wildfires-are-evidence-of-changing-climate-in-real-time/.
three distinct phases in a human’s response: Amanda Ripley, The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes—and Why (New York: Harmony, 2009), p. xviii.
Psychologists have found: Laurence Gonzales, Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why (New York: Norton, 2003), p. 196.
passengers in airplane crashes: Ripley, Unthinkable, p. 132.
known as the Lake Wobegon effect: Ibid., p. 39.
it took a specific moment: Ibid., p. 138.
OBSERVATION: THE SHERIFF’S DAUGHTER
Interviews: Paradise Police officer Kassidy Honea; Sheriff Kory Honea; Paradise Town Council member Mike Zuccolillo.
THE FIRE: SIEGE IN SIMI VALLEY
torched small ranches, movie sets: Sopan Deb, “Set for ‘Westworld’ and Other Shows Destroyed in California Fire,” The New York Times, November 10, 2018, nytimes.com/2018/11/10/arts/westworld-set-woolsey-fire-california.html.
CHAPTER 11: “THE SAFETY OF OUR COMMUNITIES”
Interviews: Travis Wright; Suzie Ernest; Shauna Jarocki; Mike Ranney.
one woman strolled with her pets: The woman was Shauna Jarocki.
Farther down Edgewood: Butte County District Attorney’s Office, A Summary of the Camp Fire Investigation, Oroville: 2020.
It had opened earlier that year: David R. Baker, “Worried About Wildfires, PG&E Unveils New Fire Forecasting Center,” San Francisco Chronicle, March 22, 2018, sfchronicle.com/business/article/Inside-PG-E-s-new-fire-forecasting-center-12897514.php.
emailed four department heads: They included Elizaveta Malashenko, Leslie Palmer, Danjel Bout, and Terrie Prosper. Meredith Allen, email to CPUC, November 8, 2018.
analysts sitting at computer keyboards: PG&E declined to talk with me for this book. Descriptions of the Wildfire Safety Operations Center and the Emergency Operations Center came from looking at photos published in newspaper articles. This piece in particular, was helpful: Jason Fagone, “Inside PG&E’s ‘War Room,’ the Chaos of Shut-off Week Seems Far Away,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 12, 2019, sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/Inside-PG-E-s-war-room-the-chaos-of-14516046.php.
the company’s Emergency Operations Center: “State Operation Center Situation Status Report,” California Office of Emergency Services, November 9, 2018.
This room was white: Fagone, “Inside PG&E’s ‘War Room.’ ”
PG&E was required to submit: These rules are required for any state utility. “Incident Investigations for Electric and Communication Facilities,” California Public Utilities Commission, accessed July 29, 2020, cpuc.ca.gov/General.aspx?id=2090.
an outage had registered on the Caribou-Palermo transmission line: “PG&E Publicly Releases Supplemental Report on Electric Incidents Near the Camp Fire,” Pacific Gas and Electric Company, December 11, 2018, accessed July 27, 2020, pge.com/en/about/newsroom/newsdetails/index.page?title=20181211_pge_p ublicly_releases_supplemental_report_on_electric_incidents_near_the_camp_fire.
CHAPTER 12: THE LONGEST DRIVE
Interviews: Chris and Rachelle Sanders.
Forest Service ranger Edward Pulaski: Timothy Egan, The Big Burn (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009), p. 167.
Citizens were offered a choice: S
arah McCaffrey, Robyn Wilson, and Avishek Konar, “Should I Stay or Should I Go Now? Or Should I Wait and See? Influences on Wildfire Evacuation Decisions,” Risk Analysis 38, no. 7 (2018), p. 1390.
(An alert during the 2020 bush fire siege): “Incidents and Warnings,” VIC Emergency, accessed June 30, 2020, emergency.vic.gov.au/public/event%2Fwarning%2F12031.html.
After the 2009 Black Saturday bush fires killed 173 people: Victorian Bush Fires Royal Commission, Final Report, Bernard Teague, Ronald McLeod, and Susan Pascoe, 978-0-9807408-1-3, Victoria: Parliament of Victoria, 2010, royalcommission.vic.gov.au/finaldocuments/summary/PF/VBRC_Summary_PF.pdf.
fifty-seven people had hidden in bathrooms: Diana Leonard, “Too Late to Leave: Australia’s Advice for Surviving Bush Fire When Surrounded,” Washington Post, January 9, 2020, washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/01/09/too-late-leave-australias-advice-surviving-bush-fire-when-surrounded/.
thousands of people were also assembled at ad hoc shelters: According to the researcher Thomas Cova, the decision to shelter in place happens when exit roads are blocked, when evacuating is seen as being too risky, or when residents have prepared and made plans to shelter at home. Thomas Cova et al., “Protective Actions in Wildfires: Evacuate or Shelter-in-Place?” Natural Hazards Review 10, no. 4 (July 2009), pp. 151–62.
People were polite: The researcher Enrico Quarantelli has found that panic and chaotic behavior are rare during disasters, explaining that the “social order [does] not break down.” As the author Rebecca Solnit explained, in studies of more than two thousand people in nine hundred fires, behavior was “mostly rational, sometimes altruistic, and never about the beast within when the thin veneer of civilization is peeled off. Except in the movies and the popular imagination. And in the media.” Rebecca Solnit, A Paradise Built in Hell (New York: Penguin, 2009), p. 124.
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