‘Our town has burned’: Most of Paradise is lost after Camp Fire ravages the area

Nov. 10--PARADISE -- Rural residents are mourning their Paradise lost, a close-knit community where many elders and working poor sought sanctuary from California's increasing crowds, costs and chaos.

"The most beautiful place in the world," said 67-year-old Daniel Woida, a Vietnam War veteran, who watched 50 mile-per-hour winds spin, ignite and consume his home while he was atop a nearby ridge, fighting to protect a neighbor's house. Without a car, he walked three miles to safety.

When Ann Ballantyne, 74, came from San Jose, "We found a quality of life here. I had four chickens -- raised them from chicks. I couldn't take the Bay Area's traffic. I couldn't take the sirens. But now there's just uncertainty."

Only a charred shell is left of Paradise after the Camp Fire blaze ignited near Pulga, a former railroad town-turned-retreat center on the edge of Plumas National Forest, and raced through the communities of Concow, Magalia and Paradise, a town of 27,000. At least nine people are dead, and 6,453 homes and 260 commercial buildings are gone.

The once-welcoming "Skyway" route that linked the Sierra foothills towns to Chico, along a rocky ridgetop between the Feather River Canyon and Butte Creek, is so choked in smoke that only skeletons of pine trees are visible.

Cars -- many of them packed with belongings, now just burned shells -- litter the roads, abandoned by people who fled with law enforcement, fire crews, family or friends to save their lives.

The local McDonalds is gone. So is the Safeway, Ace Hardware and the AM/PM gas station where residents grabbed coffee and chatted on their way to jobs in Chico. Restaurants and hotels also burned to the ground, leaving only fragments and, in some cases, a sign indicating what had been.

"It's just a little foothills town," said geographer Jacquelyn Chase of CSU-Chico, "and has been a primary destination for people who are retired." More than one-quarter of residents are over the age of 65. The median age is 50.

The region attracted early gold miners and loggers whose fortunes rose and fell along with its ore and forests. It is rumored to have been named when an early entrepreneur arrived at his sawmill on a summer day in 1864, after a hot and dusty ride from the Sacramento Valley, and reportedly exclaimed "Boys, this is paradise."

After the population in Paradise swelled to over 20,000 from 5,000 in the 1950s and 1960s, its residents decided to incorporate in 1979. But its growth plateaued; there are few local jobs to keep young people there. Many residents are on fixed incomes, such as Social Security and veterans or disability benefits.

"Housing is cheap there. There are a lot of trailer parks, and some poverty," Chase said. "It's not on a route that's on your way to a destination, like Tahoe. It never really blossomed in that way."

PG&E power lines may have sparked deadly Camp Fire -- Read the story

On the edge of Plumas National Forest, "they talked for years that someday a fire would happen, and it did," she said.

By Friday night, it had consumed 70,000 acres and was only 5 percent contained. Strong northwest winds are pushing it northeast toward Stirling City, as well as southwest toward Chico and southeast toward Yankee Hill.

The terrain is similar to what burned in Shasta County's Carr Fire -- foothills filled with shrubby vegetation mixed with ponderosa and grey pines, with grasses that act like "flashy" fuels, burning fast when dry, said ecologist Eric Knapp of the U.S. Forest Service.

The fierce winds are reminiscent of those experienced during Santa Rosa's Tubbs Fire and Ventura County's Thomas Fire, said climate scientist Daniel Swain of UCLA.

Autumn is a transitional season, when the jet stream dips down and creates alternating high and low pressure systems over the Great Basin, which triggers easterly winds over California. These winds change fire behavior -- normally, flames just race uphill, then slow doing downhill. But these winds pushed flames both up and down, with ferocious speed, said Swain.

But what's unusual is the late start of the rainy season, said Swain. The region has seen only 0.7 inches of rain so far this rainfall year -- and it fell more than a month ago, in early October, and quickly evaporated.

"It's November and dry as a bone," said Swain.

Like many other parts of California, fuel has accumulated. While the area of ignition burned in 2008's Lightning Complex Fire, satellite maps show many dead oaks and pines, both standing and on the ground, said Knapp.

As fires consumed the landscape, there were few roads upon which the rural residents had to escape, in a mad dash as the fire quickly closed in on them. Traffic backed up for hours on the few roads out of town, as people attempted to flee to Chico and elsewhere.

Even the fire station near Wagstaffe Road succumbed, standing Friday morning as a burned-out shell. Gone too were most of the homes between Skyway and Pentz Road on the eastern side of Paradise.

Johnny Dykes, 62, and Tracy Benefield, 58, prepared for 16 years to buy their house off of Skyway. Sitting on almost three acres, tucked back off the road about 150 feet, the property was their dream, they said -- a "jewel."

Camp Fire becomes the most destructive wildfire in California history, burning more than 6,700 structures -- View dramatic photos

The first news reports they heard about the fire came hours after it had started around 6:30 a.m. Thursday. Earlier, they had heard transformers popping and the sound of propane gas tanks exploding at nearby homes, but they didn't know the magnitude of what was coming.

Benefield started making calls. Her seven children all live in Paradise and nearby Magalia -- both of which were being evacuated. She took off to round up her family, all of whom were safe, she said, while Dykes packed a truck full of their belongings.

As he drove away that afternoon, officials suggested he leave his truck and evacuate with them -- fewer vehicles on the road would make it easier to evacuate. Instead, he returned to the house to get his motorcycle and started down Skyway, riding on sidewalks to get around traffic. He pulled over to a shopping center to wait out the fire in the hopes that he could return home. But as he saw flames engulf nearby apartment buildings and approach a nearby Dutch Bros. coffee drive-thru, he knew he had to go.

He rode through walls of flame down Skyway, trying to reach safety.

"I've never seen anything else like it," he said. In fact, he really couldn't see anything. Smoke filled his eyes and flames were everywhere. Almost miraculously, he said, he made it through the bursts of fire to safety in Chico.

He and Benefield spent the night at Neighborhood Church of Chico -- a Red Cross evacuation shelter -- with their 15-year-old dog, a wolf-shepherd mix. Now, they wait to learn the fate of their dream house, knowing it likely did not escape the flames.

Related Articles

*

2 killed in Southern California fire that's doubled in size

*

Deadly Camp Fire consumes 100,000 acres; 9 killed, dozens still missing

*

Trump blames poor forest management for California fires, threatens to revoke funding

*

Antioch couple all set for move to Paradise dream house -- then the fire happened

*

Resources for people with pets caught up in the Camp Fire

"If we have to start over," Dykes said with a shrug and a smile, "we will."

They won't know for sure until the evacuation order is lifted.

"But we're alive," Benefield said.

------

* Report an error

* Policies and Standards

* Contact Us

___

(c)2018 the Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.)

Visit the Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.) at www.eastbaytimes.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.