Regions south of the wildfires, including San Francisco, became blanketed in an apocalyptic red smog for days. The fires in 2018 were eclipsed in scale, though not deadliness, by the record-breaking burn in 2020, when 1.6 million hectares went up across the state. It’s getting more and more difficult for firefighters.”įirefighters trying to douse flames in Paradise in November 2018. “California is just a year-long fire season. “There’s no real timeframe any more,” says Cal Fire’s Capt Adam Johnson, who has battled similar blazes for 15 years. They are lined up ahead of schedule: fire “season” in California, an increasingly redundant term, traditionally would not intensify until later in the year. More than 200 fire engines from across the state are ready to go to fight the Dixie Fire. FairgroundsĬal Fire co-ordinates a military-base-like deployment from the fairgrounds in nearby Chico, where many former Paradise residents now live. Using the lessons of the past, this year Cal Fire is deploying a new fire behaviour-modelling system that projects its path and incorporates fuel and weather data to help put teams into position. He says he finds reassurance by speaking to Cal Fire, the state’s fire and forestry department, which through successive aggressive fire seasons has developed a world-renowned organisational playbook for tackling blazes and communicating with local officials and the public.
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“At night, you can go to just about any place in Paradise and see the glow over the hill. “People are very, very much on edge,” says Steve Crowder, the mayor of Paradise, who lost his home and business in 2018. But the sights and the smell, which fills your chest and seems to stick to your skin, bring this town back to its darkest day. Mercifully, though it started in almost the same place as 2018’s devastating Camp Fire, the weather is so far pushing this year’s flames away from Paradise. Photograph: Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images Out of sight, more than 3,000 firefighters are battling to get things under control.Ī home burns during the Dixie Fire in California this week – just 32km from the town of Paradise. The Dixie Fire has been raging since July 13th, and razed 80,000 hectares. “But it is small.”Īs he speaks, a thick plume of smoke rises, barely 32km away. “It’s not lonely here,” Loura says, looking out from the front step of his new home. Like most who once lived here, they have moved on.
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Those who Loura is referring to made it out safely, but they are not coming back. It killed 86 people, many stuck on roads as they tried to escape, in what was the deadliest fire in Californian history. He used to be surrounded by neighbours, until a fire tore through the northern California town of Paradise in November 2018. “They’re gone,” says Dale Loura (63), pointing at various plots of land around his own.