Is what pg e did orid not do, grossly negligent . He ve been on probation, theyve violated the probation. If pg e was an individual and not a corporation, i think by now th would be in prison. Ra nr tonight on frontline fire in paradise. Frontline is made possible bi cotions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. And by the corporation for public broadcastadg. Majosupport is pisvided by t john d. And catherine t. Macarthur foundation, committedo uilding a more just, verdant and peaceful world. More information at macfound. Org. The Ford Foundation working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. At fordfoudfation. Org. Or Additional Support iprovidedpo by the abrams foundation, committed to excellence in journalism. The park foundation, dedicated to heightening Public Awareness of critical issues. The john and Helen Glessner family trust. Suortipp trustworthy journalism that informs and inspires. And by the frontline journalism fund,aj with support from jon and jo ann hagler. And Additional Support from la. A debos and scott nath paradise is. Theres something about it, hetheres something with t country thats. The trees are beautiful. Just living in the mountains, and. Its healing to be here. You saw hummingbirds and butterflies. Wedweleep outside under the stars. Its a tightknit commity. E. Eryone is superstrong and resilienliup herfe you neve more safe than out there in the mountains. Good morning and its. A redflag fire danger wning in effect. Up to 45mileperhour gusts out of the north today. Right now, its 57 degrees. Humidity down to 19 already. I woke up early the morning of the eighth. The wind was very strong. Pine needles were hitting the roof. Its a metal roof, and inf my hleep state, i thought, is it raining . Any me you have the winds coming with no rain, its very nervewracking. And we were getting so late in the season, we were just itically dry. Us it waslike, please, blow in a storm. You know, every now and then, i like to wake up early and make the guys bakfast. So when the wind woke me up, i said, well, this is a perfect timeo get a jump on itn my phone was laying on the countertop next to where i wasat cutting up ps, and it illuminated. Said there was a vegetation fire in the canyon. Narrator sevenandahalf miles from the town of parade, a fire had staaded beneath highvoltage electricity tower. The line was almost 100 years old and was owned byg e, americas largest electricity company. The fire started, as pg e has admitted, from a piece of equipment that failed, bringing a power line in contact with the steel tower, so you had shards of molten metal that got thrown down into the brush. Narrator in high winds, Companies Like pg e can turn ofr the elity in power lines to reduce wildfire risk. We had heard that pg e was thinking about turning off power in, in several dferent areas that were in danger of high winds and possibly something narrator but that morning, pg e had decided not to turn off the power. It would later say this wasbe use the winds were decreasing. I made one coer arod highway 70 to where you can t actually s pulga bridge. And so i took my eyes off s e road for two seconds, looked upo saw it and made my report. rad static hissing people talking on radio arrator the fire was by narrow dirt track called camp creek roadroca ain mckenzie decided it was too dangerous to drive a fire truck down it. Narrato he requested air support to put out the fire, but it w windy to fly. It was a very sinking, very uncomfortable feeling seeing where it was at, um, and seeing how small it actually was relative to where it was at. It was a manageablelooking fire, if i could get to it. So. Couldnt get to it. T it. radio static hissing woman talking on radio narrator the fire was reing towards concow, remote settlement of around 700 people, about halfway between where the fire ignited and paradise. I got g couplof phone calls fr other chief officers asking if i wasaying attention to the radio. You know, i think like a lot of people, didnt really take it too serious we get a lot of fires up there. You know, i told them, you know, its cold, you know, its in the 40s, its november, its a nuisance fire. The incidentommat was set up at the Hardware Store at yankee hill. Anso we re preparing to defend concow and contain that fire. N woman talkingdio go ahead. 2107. Narrator cal fire th state fire Service Began sending firefighters to tackle the blaze in concow. I drove up highway 70 and ahe wind was basical blowing all the smoke right over the top of us. B narrator tze was soon dubbed the camp fire, after the road where it started. Re we topping down concow, helped out a few residents,ried to put some of the spot fires out around their house. They were relatively small, the5 were ten to maybe 20 feet. And then there was a point in there where the wind just kind of started picking up, and theha spot firest were not a big deal at the time started engulfinguboth sides of the road. My pops had been in concow ever since i can remember, before i was born. Its always felt so special. Its at the end of concow road. And, like, at the top, we always felt like nothing could hurt us there. And it was home sweet home. Narrator 21yearold jordan who lived on his own on a small, farm. Hed grow pumpkins for the grandkids. So in october, when they were ready to harvest, wed have jackolanterns to carve. And they were poppas ns and they were bigger than anyones youd seen. My ops lost his leg in a farming incident, but theyre the stubborn mountain he was always outside rking when we showed up, out in hislc whir working awa a narrator by 7 30, the fire had picked up. P. The wind was spraying burning embers in every direction. A column of smoke was now visible for miles. My dad had called my pops. Ut he washere in hisn wheelchair, um, with a hose, um, putting out the fires that were breakg out into his yard, and my dad was, like, you wow, dont worry about it, you need to go. You need to get out of here and leave. And he said, okay, i will. Ill grab the dogs and ill go. Narrator firefighter jeffgu edson and a collwere now trapped down by concow lake. We came across four individuals that were running, and they were waving their they had ember burns and stuffl on their skin and their hair. Three of them ran and justju jumped straight in the water, cause they were taking so much heat. Narrator at the incident command post, chief messina was fire. This was becoming a major just be ready to call in personnel that are offdutyri t now. Narrator but with firefighters in coow trapped, and aircraft unable to fly beuse of the wind, he didnt know how fast it was moving. We typically get our fire intelligence, what the fires doin how fast its spreading from our own line personnel. Um. Firefighte. What was different about this day was the fact that as soon as our firefighters engaged, they went right into rescue mode. And they, they were no longer ablenor did they really care, where the fire was spreading. Er theytoo busy on rescuing civilians, and, you know, ensuring that. Of their own safety. So we didnt get g lot of intelligence on how he spreading. Narrator the fire was moving towards the town of paradise, four miles away on the side of a steep canyon p in thet, fires have rarely crossed the canyon, but the camp fire was now spreading at a rate of 80 football fields a minute. telephone ringing the calls staaled coming in slowly as people were waking up in the morning, havi their coee, looking out the ndow, and seeing what i couldnt see. telephone ringing narrator dispatcher caroca ladrini had been traed to handle calls reporting fires. Do you see ashes . La do you sees . How close is it . I f becae kind of far off be across the street or two canyons away. Narrator cal fe normallyti es Paradise Police if a fire is threatening the town, but they hadnt done so. Narrator as more calls came in, ladrini says she contacted cal fire, and they told her the as north of concow miles from paradise. Ar did they say anything about the size or the inteity of the fire . No. N at that point, they didnt, and, and i didnt ask. Generally, a fire that far away would never even get close to paradise. Paradare police. Re whyo many people calling about this smoke . Ntat. Whats going on . Still, at that pi didnt know what they were seeing. telephone ringing so all i could do was call cal fire back. What i said was, can youth confirm e that this is north of concow, that this is not in paradise . People say theres ashes falling. Yes, its north of cof ow. Thats ohe words that i got. Okay. So continued to tell the peoplehat were calling that we were not under threat. telephone ringing narrator by 7 45, the fire ndhad crossed the canyon a wase threatening paradise and the surrounding area, home to 40,000 people. Cal fire issued an Evacuation Order for residents on the east de of paradise, but not for thosfrom other parts of town narrator 18 minutes after fire entered the town, carolin lareceived a call from cal fire. When i started as a firefighter in the m0s, we had large fires. You know, it wasnt uncommon. And we may be at a large fire for a week or two, maybe even a little bit longer. But then the periods would go back, wed regrnd wedd get ready for the next round. Now, in thcurrent fire environment, the season is much longer. The summer is much hot hr, drier, less humidity, and typically, our winters have been on theower end of average. We measure climateather stations, and whenires burn, we trace their footprint. Those types of analyses have shown that humancaused Climate Change has doubled wildfire since 1984 across the western United States above what would have burned thout Climate Change. Ge narrator researchers say thatn northern california, summers have warmed by an average of 2. 5 degrees in the last 50 years. At the same time, Climate Change has made prolonged drought more common in the area. What weve observed over the last several fire seass is that it doesnt rain until late in december or even early nuary, and that meanthat the landscape hasnt seen a drop of precipitation in perhaer eight months. Its that combination ofor fact where you get the high winds, you get the tigh temperatures, you have fuels that are bondry, and you combine all of those factors into a pkage that is really explosive from a wildland perspective, where then, if u throw a match into that package, youre going to generate a catastrophe. radio static hissing ad all units bsed, the town of paradise is under a mandatory evaction. The town of paradise is undery a mandatacuation. man bathing heavily i was dispatched to the fire down on the east canyoe edge. So i sli smy bodcamera on and went behind the house. I can caar a roaring, and i could see flames coming up from, from the canyon that wereob ly 30, 40 feet in height. pickering speaking on radio narrator fire was now established on the east sira of dise. Police wendoortodoor to make sure people had left. The fire was swirling around the houses. A it was coming t all angles. Defying any sense ofty or any sense of, in my mind, what would be normal for a fire. Too much was happening, too much was going on, and we were not able to do more than just a couple olehandful of streets. Narrator Sergeant Pickering made his way to paradises largest building, Feather River hospital. My husbd texts me, and he says, hey, theres a big fire. And i saidhuh. I said, i didnt see anything. Wheres it comg from . Goes, out of concow. And i said, okay, well, hopefully it doesnt cross the canyon, cause then im gonna have to evacuate the hospital. Um. And then wsaw the orange glow through the patients rooms. For the moment, yes. Er there was people that w having to carry an i. V. Bag with them, they were holdeir own i. V. Bag. And then we had people that wer just coming out of surgery that had to be loaded up. Doctors pulled up with their s. U. Vs. And were putting patients in with doctors. Okay, hang a hard right. And nurses are driving theire own privathicles and taking out their car seats and leaving them on the side of the hospital ground. It wasnt a normal evacuatn th weve been planningnd, d rehearsing, it was so fast. S what wathat . Ny where from a few minutes to 15, 20 minutes, everything around the hospital was burning it went black realck it felt like, it felt li working a night shift. radio squawking pkering sighs we were stuck in traffic for quite a while in the hospital as everything around us is on fire. Well, wheres the Fire Department, wheres the hoses . Se why isnt anybany putting thesee out . You know, it was so confusing. I assum that the fire was right there, next to me. W, i didnt kt the time, that the fire had jumped all the way into paradise. Nobody said anything to us. Body sd, hey, all of paradise is on fire. Copy, 0922. Ng on radi ultiple structures on fire here. Stt towards paradise. See the fires about to jump the road. people talking on radio picture it like a snoww blizzard. There was just thousands upon thousands of embers blowing through the air. Yoit was really hard to ge mind around how rapidly it was developing. Narrator in less than an hour, the fire swept across the to of paradise, overwhelmi the firefighters efforts to st it. T homes, the hoe s are people talking onio n rator the smoke, swirling with burning pine needles and pieces of houses, turned day t night. A area would catch on fire, homes would catch on fire generating heat, which would throw more embers, thad start another fire. And those winds can push thosewa embers a lon. And it just kind of perpetuates into one big fire at once. There was no, there was no flaming front. Narrator in a typical fire, the smoke travels straight up, where cooler air puts out most ofhe embers. But in this fire, winds high up wof up to 100 miles an hoe blowing the embers sideways. The wind aloft that lofd the embers was a lot stronger wind than the wind at the surface. And thats what allowed it to. imitates plosion . Throw fireballs all over our town. I think thins what differentiates thifire from the other fires. That they all had a path, and this one didnt. It really didnt. t it had paths. It had a lot of paths, um, and they were all happening at the same time. Oh, my god there was, like, no sirres as warnings or anything. No o telling anyone for sure what was happeni. So were, like, oh, lets go check it out. horn honking we just get in the car and we cant even pull out, causeca there wa all the way down. You couldnt even get on the road. J narratodan huff was trying to leave with her boyfriend along paradises main road, skyway. Everything was red,hi ever jt seemed like panic. I started freaking out, because thfires coming at us and i didnt wanna see it, it dianna feel ee. Like, i didnt wanna be there. I just kinda wanted toea sa because i couldnt believe this was happening. Holy bleep it wasuffering, moving that slow. I didnt understand whd not everyone was flooring it. Like, we we all about to burn alive. Iv like, why isnt neryone, like, full speed ahead . Like, why are we stuck . Like, why . How . Ad the town of pe and the upper ridge has had a Community Evacuation plan since the late 90s. In the early 2000s, that plan was updated and included maps withones in them. Paradise is limited by the number of routes out of town. Each fire is different, you know. Fires comecorom differentct direions. So we had to look at varying scenarios and determine what intersections would needul controlling undeina noally loping fire. Arrator the emergency planners had divided the town into 14 zones. They would be evacuated in turn depending on where the fire came from. We actually had a trial run in 2008. Ed we evacuhe zones on the east side of town for a fire coming from concow. Wh the Lesson Learned from 2008 was, the more you evacuatec the mos on the road, the more difficult it is to evacuate the town. So we didnt have a plan to evacuate the entire town at once mostly because it wouldnt work. Our plan became, i think, probab one of the most elaborate plans in the state. Narrator in a review aft the 2008 fire, a butte county grand jury warned that the towns roads had serious capacity limitations and made a number of recommendations, including widening the evacuation routes. Thcountys governing boa imemented some of the recommendation butreas no funding to widen all of the roads. One of my personal responses to the grand jury was, if you gave us 10 or 15 million, maybe 20 million, to build new roads off the ridge, um, maybe we could develop a plan that would t people off the ridge, you know, everyone off the ridge at one time. Co roads a lot of money. These roads would be roads that, on a average day, theyre built for traffic that doesnt exist. N d then you say were going to build four lanes that arent gonna be used except once in a, in a halfcentury . Yeah, that, thats gonna be a pretty hard ask to make. peopleotalking on radio . Gonna op up both lanes d get everybody out. people talking on radio l flames, get people moving, now narrator there were now over 350 fireghters in paradise. Int with burning embers ca new fires all across the town, there was no clear front line for them to fight. people talking on radio we conceded. I can tell you, it was 9 23 inin the morning, we conceded that intaining the evacuation routes and civilian rescue was our only objective that day, a there was no orders given that contradicted that. Narrator although the entire town was under an evacuation thousands of residents were still at home. sirens blaring my mom had me at 41. Fomany years, we were like best friends. Ent out redbox movies fm safeway, which was right next door, and hang out. Narrator 25yearoldthing. Christina taft and her mother, victoria, lived in central paradise. I wasnt thinking it was thar rious at, and then in the shower, i started to smell oke. I was definitely panicked. I thought itouldll, like, burn. An i told that to my mom, and she just. She didnt want to listen to that negativity. We werent really, ly,e, arguing, it was just kind of like i was saying stuff andng then pacp everything i could into the car. Ar like, it was completely filled in the trunk and the tack seat, and just with the fron, you know, for my mom. En iton for a hour, kind k. She was just not really packingt she didntut of her pajamas, and then she started calling other people to find out what wasappening. Looking outside, it started getting, you know, traffic and darker. I, you know, i just didnt know what. Like, it was either i leave or stay and risk my ost life, and i had a life to live. Like, told her that, like, i have a life to live. And she was just kind of, like, lking to people on the phone, and they werent telling her, leave. Narrato christina joined the thousands of othersev uating the town. Her mom refused to come w