Trump had tweeted about the catastrophe: Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), “There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!” November, 2018, 12:08 a.m., twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1061168803218948096.
issued a blistering response: The rest of the statement reads: “The president’s message attacking California and threatening to withhold aid to the victims of the cataclysmic fires is ill-informed, ill-timed and demeaning to those who are suffering as well as the men and women on the front lines. At a time when our every effort should be focused on vanquishing the destructive fires and helping the victims, the president has chosen instead to issue an uninformed political threat aimed squarely at the innocent victims of these cataclysmic fires. At this moment, thousands of our brother and sister firefighters are putting their lives on the line to protect the lives and property of thousands. Some of them are doing so even as their own homes [lie] in ruins. In my view, this shameful attack on California is an attack on all our courageous men and women on the front lines. The president’s assertion that California’s forest management policies are to blame for catastrophic wildfire is dangerously wrong. Wildfires are sparked and spread not only in forested areas but in populated areas and open fields fueled by parched vegetation, high winds, low humidity and geography. Moreover, nearly 60 percent of California forests are under federal management, and another one-third under private control. It is the federal government that has chosen to divert resources away from forest management, not California. Natural disasters are not ‘red’ or ‘blue’—they destroy regardless of party. Right now, families are in mourning, thousands have lost homes, and a quarter-million Americans have been forced to flee. At this desperate time, we would encourage the president to offer support in word and deed, instead of recrimination and blame.” Brian K. Rice, “CPF President Brian Rice Responds to President Attack on CA Fire Response,” California Professional Firefighters, cpf.org/go/cpf/news-and-events/news/cpf-president-brian-rice-responds-to-president-attack-on-ca-fire-response/.
Newsom had added his bit: Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom), “Lives have been lost. Entire towns have been burned to the ground. Cars abandoned on the side of the road. People are being forced to flee their homes. This is not a time for partisanship. This is a time for coordinating relief and response and lifting those in need up,” November 10, 2018, 10:27 a.m., twitter.com/GavinNewsom/status/1061324385628221440.
Five days later, it was Thanksgiving: This part of the chapter also originated in a San Francisco Chronicle article. Like many previous holidays, I spent it with fire evacuees who were homeless. Lizzie Johnson, “Butte County Fire Survivors Share Strange, Sad Thanksgiving,” San Francisco Chronicle, November 23, 2018, sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/Butte-County-pulls-together-but-Thanksgiving-13415243.php.
the director of the Office of Emergency Services: Mark Ghilarducci in discussion with the author, February 10, 2020.
One evacuee mused about past holidays: She was Irma Enriquez.
fourteen hundred people were crammed into twelve temporary shelters: Nanette Asimov and Kevin Fagan, “Thousands of Camp Fire Evacuees in Shelters, Tents Face Long Wait for Normalcy,” San Francisco Chronicle, November 17, 2018, sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/Thousands-of-Camp-Fire-evacuees-in-shelters-13397067.php.
An outbreak of the highly contagious norovirus: “Outbreak of Norovirus Illness Among Wildfire Evacuation Shelter Populations—Butte and Glenn Counties, California, November 2018,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 69, no. 20 (2020): 613–17.
“That’s who you see in the shelters”: Shelby Boston, April 1, 2019.
They housed more than thirty species: Ryan Soulsby, who shared details about animal operations, is used to handling domestic animal issues in unincorporated areas. In the months before the Camp Fire, Soulsby—the program manager of Butte County’s Animal Control Division—dealt with a Concow woman who owned 130 malamutes, one of which turned out to be a wolf. Ryan Soulsby (Butte County Manager of Animal Control) in discussion with the author, October 9, 2019.
the chickens continued laying eggs: Soulsby added, “Lots and lots of chickens—it’s unbelievable how many chickens we [had].” One of his favorite reunification stories, he said involved “the chickens again.” According to Soulsby, chickens are hard “because a lot of them are the same color and it’s difficult to identify one red rooster versus the other. We had a family—two kids, a wife, and a father—come in looking for their four chickens. We took them to the ‘chicken tent,’ as we called it, [which is] full of runs with unidentified-owner chickens. This family went in with the two little girls. The chickens literally ran to the little girls. It was very cool to see, even the chickens knew who the family was.”
which volunteers drove by the hundreds to UC Davis: The study was run by veterinarian Todd Kelman, who collected 372 eggs from Butte County. “There were some studies that found over two thousand different chemicals that they detect[ed] from ash in rural wildfires,” he said. “What do chickens do all day? They’re eating off the ground for hours at a time. It doesn’t take much mental math to come up with that logical conjecture—I wonder if they’re getting exposed to things. Not a lot of people had studied that.” Because of financial constraints, the chemicals in the eggs were never analyzed in a lab. Todd Kelman in discussion with the author, May 8, 2020.
dubbed Wallietown’s “mayor”: I spent a day driving around Butte County with Mel Contant, whose son lived in Chico at the time of the Camp Fire. Less than a year later, she had given up her home in the Bay Area to stay in Butte to help out. Her most recent nickname is the FEMA Ninja for how many people she’s helped cut through bureaucratic tape. “Have I slept in my truck? Yeah. Have I bounced around not knowing where I’ll be the next night? Yeah. Do I know what it’s like to be a survivor? Not even close,” Contant told me in November 2018, when we first met. “At the end of the day, I have a home to go home to. I can’t even enjoy that—how could I possibly go home and sleep in my nice warm bed with a roof over my head and a blanket on me knowing that there are these thousands of people out there that don’t have that?” Melissa Contant in discussion with the author, February 11, 2020.
had opened a Disaster Recovery Center: More information on the center can be found at fema.gov/news-release/20200220/disaster-recovery-center-opens-paradise.
destroyed 14 percent of the county’s housing: Anna M. Phillips, “ ‘Where do people go?’: Camp fire makes California’s housing crisis worse,” San Francisco Chronicle, November 24, 2018, latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-paradise-housing-shortage-20181123-story.html.
approved permits for no more than thirty-five new homes: By some measures, only eight new homes actually hit the housing stock in Paradise annually. Michelle Wiley, Sonja Hutson, and Lisa Pickoff-White, “A Year After the Camp Fire, Locals Are Rebuilding Paradise,” KQED, November 7, 2019, kqed.org/news/11785247/a-year-after-the-camp-fire-locals-are-rebuilding-paradise.
243 homes had been listed: Phillips, “ ‘Where do people go?’ ”
knew she had to stop: When I talked with Virginia Partain on Thanksgiving, she said: “Most of all, I miss my routine. My drive through Juice and Java: ‘iced tea, an asiago bagel, super-toasted with a little bit of cream cheese.’ My trek to Paradise High, where I had papers to grade, lessons to write, my agenda to be placed on the board, my students to greet me with jokes that made me chuckle, and the sound of the bell starting my day, which gave my life meaning and significance for twenty-five years. Most of all, I miss my purpose, my reason for life was so alive and full: teaching.” Virginia Partain in discussion with the auth
or, November 22, 2018.
CHAPTER 18: SECONDARY BURNS
Interviews: Butte County sheriff Kory Honea; former Paradise Town Council member Dona Gavagan Dausey and former town manager Donna Mattheis; Butte County district attorney Mike Ramsey; PG&E workers Bob Dean, Luke Bellefeuille, and Tom Dalzell.
Though controversial: The near collapse of the Oroville Dam spillway was almost one of the biggest water disasters in state history. At the time, I covered the emergency for the San Francisco Chronicle. Later, journalists from the Associated Press and The Sacramento Bee uncovered how fraught the decision to evacuate was. Butte County sheriff Kory Honea told Ryan Sabalow and Dale Kasler of the Bee: “It sounded to me that thousands of lives are at risk, so in a loud and a rather authoritative tone, I yelled for everybody to be quiet and listen to me…. I said, ‘It sounds to me that I need to order the evacuation of the southern part of Butte County. If there is anybody in this room who thinks that’s the wrong move or has a better idea then you need to speak up now. Tell me now.’ The room fell quiet, and everybody stayed quiet. So I said, ‘I’ve got to do this.’ ” In notes, he’s described as calling the decision to evacuate pulling “the big red handle.” Ryan Sabalow and Dale Kasler, “Frustration, friction flashed behind the scenes as Oroville Dam emergency grew,” The Sacramento Bee, September 8, 2017, sacbee.com/news/california/water-and-drought/article172103682.html.
what would amount to 27,784 insurance claims: Kurtis Alexander, “Camp Fire: Paradise in Recovery, Six Months Later,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 3, 2019, sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/Camp-Fire-Paradise-in-recovery-six-months-later-13815152.php.
nearly six thousand homeowners had been denied coverage: The data on who is insured came from the California Department of Insurance. Figures for all of the state’s counties can be found at insurance.ca.gov/0400-news/0100-pressreleases/2020/upload/nr104Charts-NewRenewedNon-RenewedData-2015-2019-101920.pdf.
customers in zip codes affected by past wildfires: Gireesh Shrimali, “In California, more than 340,000 lose wildfire insurance: Residents are left with little to no options in the state’s fire-prone areas,” High Country News, October 22, 2019, hcn.org/articles/wildfire-in-california-more-than-340000-lose-wildfire-insurance.
the California legislature would propose a law: Data released in August 2019 by the California Department of Insurance showed that insurance is becoming harder to find for communities across the state, with six counties from the Sierra to San Diego seeing a greater than 10 percent increase in nonrenewals in 2018 alone. This data does not account for the full impact of insurance companies’ nonrenewal response to the Camp Fire and Woolsey and Hill fires—catastrophic wildfires that killed 89 people, destroyed 13,000 homes and businesses, and cost more than $11.4 billion in damages—in addition to all fires in 2019 and 2020. Assembly Bill 2367, called “Renew California,” would require insurance companies to write or renew policies for existing homes in communities that meet a new statewide standard for fire hardening.
twelve had been participants: Shelby Boston, April 1, 2019.
(Wrongful death suits against PG&E): Camille von Kaenel, a reporter at The Chico Enterprise-Record, was the first to write in depth about what it means to die from a wildfire but not be tallied among its fatalities. She writes: “People who died as an indirect result of the disaster aren’t memorialized with crosses on the Skyway. They don’t get profiles in the newspaper. They aren’t counted by any local, state or national agency. That has consequences: Most often, they had preexisting vulnerabilities and passed away because their care was interrupted. But the expanded death toll isn’t being factored into future emergency preparedness or health system capacity planning.” Camille von Kaenel, “Families Mourn Indirect, ‘Forgotten’ Deaths from Camp Fire: At Least 50 Indirect Deaths Appear in Vetted Claims Against PG&E,” Chico Enterprise-Record, February 11, 2020, chicoer.com/2020/02/11/families-mourn-indirect-forgotten-deaths-from-camp-fire/.
the company submitted two electric incident reports: The two reports can be found at s1.q4cdn.com/880135780/files/doc_downloads/2018/wildfire/12/12-11-18.pdf.
the only structure on his 160-acre homestead: Ruby J. Swartzlow, “Indians in Paradise,” Tales of the Paradise Ridge, vol. 1, no. 1, June 1960.
“We just kept growing and growing”: Dona Gavagan Dausey in discussion with the author, August 1, 2019.
“The future of Paradise”: The California Digital Newspaper Collection is an excellent source of past articles. Another edition of the Chico Record from April 1909 boasts: “So many transfers in Paradise real-estate have been made and so many contracts of sale entered into the past ten months that it would be impossible to give a complete list of all those who have seen the great opportunities at Paradise and have seized the present moment to secure a little land before the prices rise any higher…. As one buyer expressed it, ‘Paradise is bound to grow. It simply cannot help it.’ After all, the chief reason for the development of the Ridge is that it is inevitable.” “Paradise: The Town with a Future,” Chico Record, July 3, 1908.
Newsom would later tell reporters: Kathleen Ronayne, “California Governor Won’t Block Building in High-Fire Areas,” Associated Press, April 15, 2019, apnews.com/b17b5c9200a64466b49f3f605f9202fe.
to speak during public comment: A video recording of the meeting on November 29, 2018, can be found at adminmonitor.com/ca/cpuc/voting_meeting/20181129/.
wasn’t intimidated: Mike Ramsey in discussion with the author, November 7, 2019.
PG&E’s tainted track record: My colleague J. D. Morris and I first worked on this story at the San Francisco Chronicle. Lizzie Johnson and J. D. Morris, “At PG&E, a Workforce on Edge—and Under Attack—as Fire Season Arrives,” San Francisco Chronicle, June 9, 2019, sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/At-PG-E-a-workforce-on-edge-and-under-attack-13962723.php.
CHAPTER 19: REBIRTH
Interviews: FEMA administrator Bob Fenton; Paradise Irrigation District manager Kevin Phillips; Butte County district attorney Mike Ramsey; Concow residents Peggy and Pete Moak; Olivia Carmin of the Heffern family; Cal Fire captain Stacer Harshorn; former Paradise Town Council member Steve “Woody” Culleton; Paradise schools superintendent Michelle John and student Faith Brown; Butte County Sheriff’s Office investigator Tiffany Larson; Paradise Police sergeant Steve Bertagna.
“The amount of metals in that ash”: Bob Fenton in discussion with the author, October 15, 2019.
the $2 billion clean-up: Kurtis Alexander, “Reclaiming Paradise: Six Months After the Camp Fire, a Devastated Community Hopes to Rebuild—If It Can,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 3, 2019, projects.sfchronicle.com/2019/rebuilding-paradise/.
had been contaminated with cancer-causing benzene: After the Tubbs Fire of 2017, the Santa Rosa community of Fountaingrove faced a similar issue. Five miles of water pipes, which served 350 homes, were destroyed. As sections of the polyvinyl chloride pipe melted during the blaze, carcinogens leached into the system. And when the water pressure dropped, ash and chemicals from burnt-out homes were sucked back into the main lines, permanently contaminating them. The polluted zone covered 184 acres there. “To be blunt, a lot of what we are dealing with, no city has ever had to deal with before,” Chris Rogers, Santa Rosa’s vice mayor, told me about the contaminated system. “Even during our research and talking with experts, there is not a large body of evidence or plans that have been developed to address something of this nature. We are building the plane as we fly it.” As wildfires burn hotter, more communities are likely to face similar issues. Lizzie Johnson, “Another Gut Punch for Santa Rosa: Fire Destroys Neighborhood Water System,” San Francisco Chronicle, April 15, 2018, sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Another-gut-punch-for-Santa-Rosa-Fire-destroys-12834914.php.
struggled to absorb the overflow:
Chico was impacted in other ways, too. Enloe Hospital saw a 40 percent uptick in baby deliveries. Emergency room visits went from 180 per day to 260. After the fire, car crashes increased by 23 percent. Tony Bizjak, “Chico’s Post Camp Fire World: Car Crashes, Frayed Nerves and Bare-Knuckle Politics,” The Sacramento Bee, May 23, 2019, sacbee.com/news/california/article230015334.html.
organized a recall effort: Residents were unhappy with Mayor Randall Stone and councilman Karl Ory. The effort ended in November 2019.
settled in places like Hawaii: Chico State University did a fascinating project tracking where, and why, Camp Fire survivors have ended up in the places that they did. Researchers found that half of the over-65 demographic had left—more than in any other age group. Meanwhile, people with children tended to end up in Chico or within thirty miles of their old home. The study can be found at today.csuchico.edu/mapping-a-displaced-population/.
of the roughly three thousand houses: About 75 percent of the homes destroyed by wildfires in California were located in the wildland-urban interface. Christopher Flavelle, “Why Is California Rebuilding in Fire Country? Because You’re Paying for It,” Bloomberg, March 1, 2018, bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-03-01/why-is-california-rebuilding-in-fire-country-because-you-re-paying-for-it.
legislators had met at the state capitol: A video recording of the meeting on May 8, 2019, can be found at assembly.ca.gov/media/assembly-joint-hearing-local-government-governmental-organization-housing-community-development-20190508/video.
the Paradise Town Council held a special meeting: A video recording of the meeting can be found on the town’s Facebook page: facebook.com/watch/live/?v=289528595325881&ref=watch_permalink.
dozens of people had sought refuge in a lake: Alexander, “Trapped by Camp Fire.”
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