Through the fire: a town called Paradise
You may be surprised to learn that there are a lot of towns in America called “Paradise.” Twenty-six, to be exact.
Or maybe it’s twenty-five now, because one was destroyed in a single day by an inferno that swept through it, leaving almost nothing.
Maybe it will be rebuilt. Some residents sound determined to do so. But whether or not it manages to rise from its own ashes, the town in California called Paradise is now famous for the day it ceased to be.
This particular Paradise was in certain ways a rather ordinary town of rather ordinary size, population 27,000. It boasted the usual churches, schools, fast food places, and the like. But its setting on a ridge between deep canyons was spectacular, and the drive called Skyway from Paradise to nearby Chico was impressively beautiful.
But a town is a community, too, and the community of Paradise—although dispersed at the moment—lives on.
Like me, you may have watched videos made by residents of Paradise and surrounding towns as they fled the fire in their cars, driving through scenery that was anything but paradisiacal: walls of flame on either side, sky black with smoke and red/orange with flame, wind-whipped embers coming at the car with seeming malevolence, heat that threatened to melt tires and metal and everyone inside. Even viewing the videos from afar on a little computer screen, and knowing that those people who took these particular videos survived, the scenes are intensely terrifying.
And of course it’s hard not to think of those who didn’t survive, and what they went through before they died and in their deaths.
What do the people in these videos do? Some pray. Many curse and yell repeatedly in intense frustration at the drivers ahead of them to move, move, MOVE. Men try to calm wives and children and hide their own fears. And they drive—drive through a landscape out of Dante, where they can barely see the road ahead of them, and where downed power lines and falling trees just add to the seeming impossibility of the journey.
I don’t know how they did it. I am glad I didn’t have to do it. I don’t know if I’d have been up to the task. These people were, though.
Here’s a video of a father driving away with his two sons. There are many other videos, but this one made an especially deep impression on me, perhaps because of the family dynamics. The sons, whose ages remain unspecified, demonstrate two different personalities. One seems to manage for the most part to stay relatively calm and optimistic, the other is more doubtful and fearful. Their father is a hero, and somehow remains wonderfully reassuring as he drives through a nightmare landscape in flames (this was taken in the middle of the day). Stick with it till the end for the final question the more fearful boy asks:
The father writes at YouTube:
I was born in Paradise 47 years ago and always told my 4 kids that Paradise is safe from flooding, tornadoes, earthquakes, the only thing we had to worry about was a fire. But that would never happen. Well it happened. Paradise is now hell. We had 15 minutes to get out and lucky enough my entire family is safe including our two dogs Coco and jet and our bearded dragon. We lost everything else. Please keep us and everyone from Paradise in your prayers.
There is a GoFundMe page for him. If you go to this webiste, you’ll find information on how to make more general contributions for the fire victims. In addition, blogger Gerard Vanderleun, who was displaced by the Paradise fire and is currently living with his near-104-year-old mother, can be helped by hitting his tip jar.
This is the song that’s been coming to mind for me when I think of what happened to Paradise. The visuals in this video are about a somewhat slower process of dislocation from a town, but the sentiment of nostalgia and loss is there:
As your online source indicates, Neo, there is a Paradise in my home county, a hamlet (CDP, in the modern census jargon) of some 1,129 souls that lies about 10 miles from my home town of Lancaster. It became famous some years back because of a juvenile joke about another nearby small town (founded in 1754) called Intercourse. The joke was that the shortest way to Paradise is through Intercourse.
I’m not trying to make light of the destruction of Paradise, California, just hoping that a little bit of humor will ease the pain of these dark days.
PA Cat, hilarious!
I was a little shocked to hear about the Paradise fire because I’d driven through a different Paradise (MI) a couple of months ago on the way to Whitefish Point. It’s the kind of place to which I could think of retiring someday, if retirement is still a viable option for my generation at that point (of which I become increasingly skeptical as time goes on). Some piece of my mind must have thought of that Paradise initially when all this came to light.
It was touching to hear that last question on the recording. That poor boy. I wonder how old he is.
Iris DeMent… I think it was on the Powerline blog that I first heard of her. A very moving song choice.
How powerful. That father is, without question, a hero.
Mrs Whatsit:
Agreed.
He reports on that YouTube video page that he has been having a lot of nightmares, since the fire. I hope his PTSD is of the temporary variety. A lot of people have commented on the video, saying what an excellent father he is, and he says that has helped.
Speaking of fear—fear of fire is primal and basic.
Another couple, who escaped Paradise by sliding on their butts down into a deep canyon and hiking 5 miles along the riverbed (and they are in their 60s), report that as they were sliding down, all sorts of wildlife were running past them. Deer, for instance.
I am not clear how close the wildfire was to Paradise the town at its start. But I am concerned with what seems to be a commonplace: denial. Why this wait until the last minute? Followed by the rightfully frightening last-minute escape along with so many others? The fearful son was right to be fearful, and, when an adult in the future, he will not deny and delay.
I have been to Flagstaff AZ many times, seen the many houses tucked amidst the towering pines (all full of inflammable turpentine, I remind you). These homes sit on granite too thick for individual wells, so there are many pickup trucks with 500 gallon tanks which their owners fill in town and truck back to their homes in the woods!
Cicero:
In general, people didn’t wait, although some people did, of course (as some people ordinarily do). This was one of the fastest or perhaps the fastest-moving wildfire in California history, moving into and across the town at record speed. It was reported to have covered more than a football field of ground each second.
It is reported to have begun at an area north of Sacramento 150 miles (see this for some of this information). Paradise is about 85 miles north of Sacramento, so the fire apparently began about 65 miles away from Paradise. It was first reported at 6:33 AM, and when crews got there it wasn’t all that large but they knew it could be dangerous because of very high winds and prolonged drought.
Authorities say they issued evacuation orders as soon as possible, but (and I can’t find the source for this at the moment, but I’ve read it several places) they said that the nature of the fire meant that the evacuation could not and would not go smoothly or as planned. I have yet to read the details of exactly when it was issued, and I don’t know how it was communicated, either.
People left quickly—most did not even stop to take very much with them at all except themselves and their pets. Then the problem was the traffic jams. There are few roads out of town and all but one had to be closed very early, and by then the fire had swept very quickly through the town and people were stuck on the one main road out of town. For some people, the trip that should take about 20 minutes—to Chico—took many hours, hours of terror. Bulldozers came by and bulldozed abandoned and/or burned husks of cars out of the way of the others, saving many many lives. Some people ran for it, and some people died that way. They couldn’t see, they couldn’t breathe the air, and they also could get burned or electrocuted by fallen powerlines.
By 10 AM, 2,000 homes in Paradise were already destroyed, by a fire that started only 3 1/2 hours earlier in a remote place. And people who left a lot earlier than 10 AM were caught in the terrible traffic, the smoke and the flames. The skies had darkened nearly instantaneously. If a fire moves at a speed of more than a football field (about 120 yards, I believe I read) a second, how fast does it traverse 65 miles? If I’m doing the math correctly, it would take 15 minutes. And then it goes through the town in just a couple of minutes, as well.
That math seems unbelievable to me, but I did it twice and it came out around 15 minutes to travel 65 miles. Perhaps it didn’t spread at that exact speed the whole time, but the point is it was astoundingly fast and you are incorrect to assume these people waited any significant amount of time at all.
I’ve read that the actual source that started it all was a PG&E high voltage power line that snapped in a strong wind.
Such a conductor would be equivalent to a hose of gasoline six inches across.
The God’s eye view pin-points the ignition spot as being directly under the palth of PG&E’s grid.
Such a fire-starter would go a LONG way towards explaining the explosive start of this inferno.
We’ll have to wait for the Fire Marshall to weigh in before taking this speculation an further.
In a February report, the watchdog Little Hoover Commission concluded that the way California landowners have collectively managed forests is an “unprecedented catastrophe.”
Why California’s Best Strategy Against Wildfire Is Hardly Ever Used
https://www.kqed.org/science/1927354/controlled-burns-can-help-solve-californias-fire-problem-so-why-arent-there-more-of-them
“drive through a landscape out of Dante, where they can barely see the road ahead of them, and where downed power lines and falling trees just add to the seeming impossibility of the journey.”
Yes, that is an accurate description – “landscape out of Dante”
I hope that I am never in that situation as I can’t help but think that I would only be able to follow the car in front of me, which is following the car in front of them; and hope that the lead car isn’t about to take us all INTO Dante’s hell (or off a cliff).
Neo: Aye, there’s perhaps the rub; the Authorities. The fire did not meet their plans. And what does ASAP mean here?
“Authorities say they issued evacuation orders as soon as possible, but (and I can’t find the source for this at the moment, but I’ve read it several places) they said that the nature of the fire meant that the evacuation could not and would not go smoothly or as planned. I have yet to read the details of exactly when it was issued, and I don’t know how it was communicated, either.”
One needs to seek out what is fixable in these situations.
Grassland fires can advance with speed humans and critters cannot outrun. The Paradise fire seems from the vid to have been a combo of tree-topping up high (also rapid) and grassland below.
Cicero:
I doubt anyone was sitting on their duffs.
And people cannot plan for every contingency, including one that was beyond the experience even of very experienced firefighters in California. You can say a lot of things about California, but they know how to fight these types of fires better than just about anyone in the world.
You can argue about prevention, etc., but they are generally good about nipping fires in the bud.
I lived in California for a while. I once was driving along the highway, and was a few feet from my exit. I saw a brush fire about six feet by six feet, on a hill with brush and grass. By the time I got to the house, which was about a 2 minute drive away, helicopters were overhead fighting it, and the news was on TV. It had spread with lightning speed, but they put it out very quickly.
Unless I hear otherwise, I will assume they acted as fast as humanly possible in the case of the fire that destroyed Paradise.
A truly remarkable video. Kudos to the father. Kept a cool head and reassured his boys while in an extreme situation. Not easy to do.
Those poor people who have lost everything. Prayers and donations are needed.
The drought has been severe in California, but the state’s history has been one of recurring droughts and wet spells. In 1969 I was living in the Los Angeles Basin and there was a drought in place. Experts said it would take five years of normal rainfall to fill the state’s reservoirs. One winter of very heavy precipitation filled them. The experts were amazed. Climate change is continuously cited but my guess that the present climate conditions in California aren’t too much different than the dust bowl years of 1928-1935. In 1969 experts were saying the state could not continue to grow without more water and water storage, but in the 1970s they declined to build more reservoirs as more water was channeled south to Los Angeles from the Sacramento Valley and the state’s population continued to grow. They have major problems with water shortages, droughts, and too many people. They have always had fires, but a combination of circumstances has come together to make them worse during this drought. It’s time for their leaders to take a look at the weather history of the state and start managing their water resources and landscape in a fashion that coincides with their reality.
Here’s a 2014 article that discusses some of the drought history of the state.
https://civileats.com/2014/02/05/a-history-of-drought-in-california-learning-from-the-past-looking-to-the-future/
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Too much silly push for high speed rail, not enough for water management and reservoirs — and better forest management. Tho it’s also clear that there is not general “expert” agreement on how to best manage forest in a frequent drought / hilly lightly populated area.
More roads and escape roads should also be built (and maintained with costly maintenance). Possibly including specific fire-break roads — which could then be used for bike tourism only, except in emergencies (like a fire).
Horrific fire – Dante’s Inferno. Great video choice.
Somehow, the “Our Town” video was very depressingly moving.
neo — I had been wondering about the PTSD situation for that terrified little boy who cried so hard once they finally escaped, but I can imagine that it would be just as bad, if not worse, for that father. I was once trapped in a scary situation in a car with one of my children and a small niece — nothing remotely close to the level of terror of what happened in Paradise, but about half an hour of intense anxiety. It had sprung in the first place from a driving error that I made, and the smallest difference in what I’d done – just a foot or two of driving or a second or two of reaction — could have kept us out of it or killed us. I had obsessive thoughts and nightmares about what could have happened for a few weeks before things settled down, and I still get remnants when I drive in similar places. I’m sure it will take considerably longer for this family, and on top of the terrifying experience is the loss of their home and their whole community. I hope that the fact that the father’s calm courage saved his family will help him to heal.
Neo,
I have done the math, based on numbers reported by CNN, the apparent source of the “football field length per 3 seconds” number you cite.
That CNN article says “It grew by 5,000 acres Thursday in just three hours, according to Cal Fire, meaning it expanded by an average of more than one football field every 3 seconds during that period.” Note the “meaning”, per CNN.
Now let’s do the math.
An acre is about 43,000 square feet.
5000 acres is 215,000,000 square feet, the area of a circular fire. One must assume a circle to do the math, since we peasants have no further area data.
Circle area =pi times radius squared. Pi is 3.1415. Knowing area, solve for radius squared, then take square root thereof for radius.
Assuming worst case (original diameter at start of these three hours was zero),
the radius went from zero to 8272 feet in three hours. A mile is 5280 feet. So the fire radius expanded by 1.57 miles in three hours. Which yields an expansion speed of 2.35 mph. The football field “factoid” reported by CNN (120 feet in 3 seconds) translates to a speed of 27 mph, more than a ten-fold speed difference.
Y’all check my math to rule out errors.
Cicero:
The figure I had read when I did the math was about 120 yards every second. Different figure.
I actually plan to cover some of this stuff in a new post at some point. Maybe today, maybe not.
I outlined my assumptions and method.
You did not.
So our answers may differ, but which is the correct way? Or the “more correct” way, if you prefer.
Cicero:
I had explained that I used the figure of a bit more than a football field per second. You used a different figure. I also just wrote that I’m planning a post on it. I’m too busy at the moment.
A couple of small random observations.
In the couple of videos I watched, there was such a remarkable change in lighting when the car came out of the smoke clouds, which made it look like they were driving at night, into normal daylight, as if they had outrun the terminator.
The most frightening movie scene I remember as a child is the forest fire in Bambi, and the videos capture the same kind feeling.
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/earthview.php
“The dividing line between day and night (which is fuzzy) is called the terminator. On the whole-Earth map, the Sun is rising at places along the terminator where the sunlit part of the Earth is to the right, and setting at places along the terminator where the sunlit part of the Earth is to the left. On this map, in the polar regions, the terminator is horizontal (along a line of constant latitude) or nearly so for part of its length; at such places, the Sun is “skimming” the northern or southern horizon. At any place along the terminator, the local direction of the Sun on the horizon is perpendicular to the terminator, toward the point on the Earth where the Sun is at the zenith.”
https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/sunearth.html
It was also very poignant when one of the boys realized that the totally destroyed house they were passing belonged to one of their friends. I think that is when the younger one fully realized what was happening to his own home.