The last time Jerry Garcia saw his home of nearly 20 years, flames almost 12ft tall were consuming it.
It happened fast – the wind-driven Camp fire moved across the Feather River Canyon in northern California with a speed even experienced firefighters like Garcia had rarely seen. Soon the entire town of Paradise would be enveloped by a firestorm “raining hell down”, the Butte county sheriff, Kory Honea, would later say. There would be no time to save the town; all efforts in the first eight hours of the fire, which was spreading at a rate greater than a football field a minute, would focus on rescuing people.
The Camp fire, named for the road near its origin, would become the most destructive fire in state history, and the deadliest, killing at least 63 people, and with hundreds unaccounted for.
More than 9,800 homes have been destroyed by the fire, largely in Paradise, a town of 27,000. Also gone are 366 commercial buildings, and a third of the town’s schools.
There is much to rebuild, but before that can begin, authorities must finish sifting through the ashes to find what’s left of those who didn’t make it out in time. Some may never be recovered, and returning evacuees may find remains that authorities missed, the sheriff has warned.
Still, residents are eager to return home, or at least to the rubble that remains. But how does a town, nearly wiped off the map, rise from the ashes?
It’s a question with no easy answers. Since the disaster began, local government officials have emphasized the commitment to rebuilding the town, even though its location means that fire is always a risk. But it will probably take at least five to 10 years to restore the town, and it may take longer for individual residents, said Robert B Olshansky, an expert in post-disaster recovery.
“I’m confident they’re going to rebuild but it’s going to be tough,” Olshansky said. “The people who are there five years from now may not be the same ones now. There are going to be a lot of households for whom it may still be a disaster.”
The town can’t be rebuilt the way it was, federal officials have warned the county, but some have a hopeful vision for the its future, that it could have newer schools, a sewer system instead of outdated septic tanks – and be safer from fires.
“If we’re going to rebuild, we’re going to rebuild a community where this never happens,” the former fire chief and town evacuation operations coordinator, Jim Broshears, said.
The risk of fire has always been present in the forested area, high in the Sierra foothills and surrounded by canyons on two sides. The town has experienced at least four evacuations due to fire in 10 years. Close to 200 homes were lost in 2008 fires. But this was a worst-case scenario.
Now, as the community prepares to rebuild, it can construct safer, more modern buildings, and perhaps look at how its forests are managed, Broshears said.
“We have an opportunity to build the forests in the model of pre-European [settlement] conditions,” Broshears said. “That is going to be a more resilient forest.”
Currently, the western sierras are densely wooded, and that isn’t necessarily the best model for the forests to get through fires, said Thomas Scott, an expert on wildfire at the University of California, Berkeley. That’s because these are second-growth forests, woodland that has regrown after harvest, which carry fire further and faster than the trees there before.
The idea of a pre-Columbian forest generally means not suppressing early summer fires, and removing some younger trees to create a more widely spaced forest. Forest management in this sense is not about harvesting trees, it’s about thinning the forest to protect the community.
“You get back a more pre-Columbian forest then that means it’s less likely to trap all those people in the town,” Scott said. Even with that approach there will still be fires, they would just be less likely to start at the crest of the sierras and stop at the Central Valley, he said.
Fire is a process that Californians have to live with, manage and stop thinking of as a foe, Scott said.
“The Paradise fire is a special case because there were sufficient fuels around the city which let the fire come in a number of different ways,” Scott said.
Homeowners can make their properties less vulnerable to fire, including ensuring the roof isn’t flammable with dried leaves and vegetation, or creating defensible space. Still, some fires, particularly those driven by wind, can’t be fought. With most fuel in the area burned up, Paradise will probably be safe from fire for awhile, but not forever, and the rest of the state is at risk much of the year.
“I don’t want to sound heartless but we just have to accept when you live in a burnable landscape, especially if the climate is changing, it may be when your house burns and not if your house burns,” Scott said.
A new Paradise
Rebuilding starts once the fire, currently burning 221 sq miles at 45% containment, is extinguished, and then hazardous ash and rubble cleaned up, which could take as long as a year. Butte county has begun advising residents on what to do when they return, though they acknowledge that could be weeks or months away.
There is almost no gas, electricity or safe water, and no emergency services, although the police station and fire station survived, as did the town hall. The air is hazardous, risk of falling tree limbs ongoing, and what’s left of homes, incinerated belongings and kitchen appliances, is probably toxic.
Once residents are permitted to return, few will have anywhere to stay. Because it was a fire that destroyed the town, chances of successful rebuilding are much higher compared with other disasters, Olshansky said, thanks to insurance.
Support from the state and federal government, through loans and funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, will aid the town in its recovery, including constructing new public buildings. Paradise unified school district, which lost at least three of its nine schools, with others sustaining significant damage, will rebuild. Even before the fire residents had just approved a $61m bond to fund building and equipment updates.
Until students can return to schools that are still standing, the district is looking at online programs, Superintendent Michelle John said, and other school districts have volunteered to take additional students.
Schools are key, Olshansky said; residents typically return to areas hit by disaster if schools continue to operate. But the challenge, just as in Santa Rosa communities hard hit by last year’s Tubbs fire, which destroyed nearly 3,000 homes, will be finding qualified contractors to rebuild schools and homes. The damage to Paradise is estimated to be at least two to three times what Santa Rosa experienced, the mayor, Jody Jones, said.
“Having enough capable contractors to go around – that more than anything will slow things down. Building will be a challenge,” Olshansky said.
The town is working on streamlining the process of building inspections and permits, the mayor said, and looking at how it can support small businesses, which have a high bankruptcy rate after disasters.
Thinking about it long-term is tough, the mayor added, but the town – even though every council member, 17 police officers, and dozens of firefighters lost their homes along with thousands of others – will rebuild.
“We have our people, they’re more important than any things,” Jones said.
In the days after they watched their house overtaken by flames, Jerry Garcia’s wife, Sharon, wasn’t interested in returning to the town where they lived for decades, but that changed. They plan on returning.
“We lost everything that we have. It seemingly took everything that we had but it has not taken our souls and that’s all that really counts,” Garcia said. “That’s why we’re going back.”