Paradise: Camp Fire

This weekend I joined seven of my Monterey County Search & Rescue team members in Oroville, Butte County (80 miles north of Sacramento), to work with some five or six hundred other volunteers and professionals—fire, law enforcement, and National Guard—surveying the devastation that is the now mostly former town of Paradise, population just shy of 27,000. That town and a few other smaller communities were slammed by a fire on Thursday, November 8. Here is a Landsat 8 image of the fire from that morning, about four hours after it erupted at dawn:

A friend of mine who lives in nearby Chico (pop. 93,000), and was warned that evacuation was a strong possibility there too, said the sky was dark as midnight. The fire was so fast moving, and evacuation routes out of Paradise so few and constricted, that many people were forced to leave their cars on the road and try to make it out on foot. Many died. As I write, the death toll stands at 79—making it the deadliest fire in California history—and 700 remain missing.

Our task as SAR was to inspect each burned property, looking for fatalities: long bones, skulls. The officials' goal is to begin opening sections of town up to residents so they can come in and see whether their home is still standing (some 13,000 homes were destroyed), collect valuables (if any remain), and . . . well, mourn. The town of Paradise as they all knew it is no more. Whether and how it will be rebuilt remains to be seen—though during the two days we spent there, PG&E was already hard at work installing new telephone poles, so they, at least, seem to reckon the town will rise again.

Here are some photos I took during my two days there. Me, I stayed close to our Zone 7 CP (command post), helping our group leader, Casey, with "scribing": writing down radio traffic, updating the map. Occasionally I'd accompany fellow volunteer Nadene to liaison with our workers, seeing if they needed anything. I did no searching per se (though I did last year at the Tubbs Fire, so I know what's involved: it's hard work). And thankfully, our teams found nothing in the way of human remains—though that said, it's hard to be sure, with all that devastation. You're basically looking at a couple feet of rubble that used to be a two-story house, and sometimes a fallen metal roof covers much of it. Fire will continue to go into the community to move those roofs aside, and more searchers will take another look. It's a long, difficult process.

(As always, click on the photos to view them large on black.)

Morning briefing at base camp, a thriving city of several
hundred, complete with showers and laundry.

Each morning everyone signs in and
assignments are made. This is one search zone's
sign-up area (and our own Detective Ken Owen
there on the right).

A couple dozen anthropologists were standing by
to inspect any bones that we found. They crafted
a crude poster showing what bones and teeth look like
after they've been subjected to extreme heat.

The gentleman here, a Native American from Paradise, was
blessing anyone who wanted it. Nadene did. He waved a
burning smudge stick over the person while speaking
words of courage and peace. Later, during the briefing,
after a chaplain had led us all in prayer, heads bowed,
this man led us in another prayer, and he invited us to look
to the sky, where the great spirit dwells. It felt very consoling.

Our Zone 7 CP: working out of the truck. Deputies Knutsen
and Condon, and Nadene. The map was our go-to planning tool.

Cell service was awful for ATT. Josh painted
a magic circle for Casey to stand in. More
seriously, the orange spray paint is what teams
used to mark a property as having been inspected.

Studying a search section on the map.

We had three groups of National Guardsmen, who all
traveled in that big bus. Here they are suiting up at our
staging area. They were great workers—gung-ho,
efficient, and organized. We also worked with SAR
teams from Madera, Del Norte, Tulare, and Yuba counties.

At last year's Tubbs Fire, we worked with little to no PPE
(personal protective equipment). The authorities apparently
learned something in the meantime, and all searchers were
outfitted with Tyvek suits, booties, and respirators, plus
they wore their own helmets and work gloves.

Note the undamaged children's toy. It is always so perplexing
to see such devastation, and in the middle of it, some
random item—an ornamental garden deer, a jet ski,
a green dinosaur, a campaign sign—in perfectly
fine shape.

An exercise bike and swing set

Vehicles are always so eerie, since they're so familiar:
melted wheels, exploded belted radials, and bare, burnt
metal inside.

Children at play no more. One of the things that
struck me throughout the burn zone was that the
trees were mostly fine—not even charred.
Here is a story about the science of that, in the case
of this particular fire.

The telephone poles, on the other hand, all
burned, from the bottom up a few yards—
which left the tops dangling on power lines. While
we were in Paradise, PG&E was traveling through
town cutting all the transformers down and carting
them away.

There are many stories on social media about all
the animals that were found—many, many
cats, also pigs, donkeys, goats, dogs, and, yes,
chickens. Nadene keeps chickens herself, so she
was glad to have a sandwich to feed these three,
who seemed especially happy about the cheese!

Eric, Nadene, and a Madera County volunteer,
with the tools of the trade

At the end of the shift, the teams marked Xs on the
map to indicate the structures they had cleared.
These are our National Guardsmen. Awesome group.

Lew, Eric, and Nadene

With a search section almost complete, Nadene
and TJ discuss where to go next

This was the Paradise Church of Christ.
Adjacent to our staging area.

A couple of vintage cars

A persimmon tree survived the inferno,
making for a spot of beauty

The smoky drive back to base camp

The lake at base camp

And . . . base camp: basically, a fire camp, with tents
accommodating eighteen—but we were only seven, so
had plenty of room to spread out. Heater and
overhead light. Posh! And the food! It's far from the
wilderness search & rescue experience many of us are
used to. But . . . I suppose we shouldn't get used to it.

Our team is continuing to head up to Oroville and Paradise over the next week as the searching continues. Five of us are there now. Rain is forecast for the next few days, and it remains to be seen how that will affect the search efforts. It's a sad, hard task, but I feel privileged to have been in a position to assist. It's an act of witnessing, for sure. I wish the very best to all those people who have lost their homes—never mind those who lost friends and loved ones, or who still don't know. I can't imagine going through something like that. Or no: I can begin to, thanks to experiences like this. My heart goes out to the good folks of Paradise, Magalia, Concow, and the other communities devastated by the Camp Fire.