All language subtitles for All.Its.Name.Implies.2020.WEBRip.x264-ION10

- We wanted to find out what
some of our peers thought.

So we asked a few PHS students.

(static sound)

(slow calm music)

(strong winds blowing)

- Well, here's our house,

(fire crackling)

everything around us is on fire.

Oh man this is bad.

Can't really see very
well, oh man, this is bad.

There goes our house,
it's all engulfed now.

(fire crackling)

Well, don't know what to say,

just thought I would video
this in case it's the last time

some of you guys see me.

- [Ev Durán] For my entire life,

whenever someone asked me where I was from

and I would respond,
"Oh, I'm from Paradise,"

they would always look at me kinda weird.

They're never really quite sure
what to do with that answer.

So they'd say something
like, "No... really?"

And I'd say, "Yeah, no,
really, it's a town,

it's called Paradise." And
they'd laugh and tell me

they thought I was joking and I'd smile

that same polite smile that we all have

when you're in a conversation you've had

a thousand times before,
and the follow up question

would always be, without fail,

"Well, is it really Paradise?"

- Here on this area and like here

where the trees are around,

but don't go any further than that okay,

'cause there's (indistinct)

- [Ev Durán] This is the Rauscher family.

Parents: Richie and Savannah,

kids: Anneliese and Richard.

On November 8th, 2018, the Camp Fire

took their entire home
and everything in it.

For the kids, this is
their first time visiting

their property since the fire.

- What do you think?

- It's still good, just put a net.

- Yeah, just put a net in it,
clean it off a little bit.

- Yeah, it's a little
rusty, maybe paint it red.

- Nah, leave the paint,
just put a new net on.

- Am I allowed to touch it?

- Nah, I wouldn't touch
it, not without gloves on.

There's something else I wanna show you.

(metal creaking)

Yeah, stay there.

Hey bud,

all three of our face cages.

- Wait, where's my hockey bag?

- Dude, your hockey bag did not survive.

Did you wanna try and
move some of the roof

to look for the ring?

- Yeah.

(moving metal)

- [Ev Durán] The Rauschers are here today

hoping to find Savannah's wedding ring,

buried somewhere in the
twisted metal and mucky ash

that was once their family home.

- Watch for nails.

- This ceramic thing, is that the toilet?

- Maybe, what was this, do you know?

- No, it's so weird there's so much stuff

but I can't figure out
what the hell it is.

- It could be stuff that was

part of the attic's construction, so.

- I was like, oh my gosh, this ring set

is the most beautiful
ring set I've ever seen,

I just love it, it was
like from the 1930's

and it was like very
vintage, it's beautiful.

And then Richie went back
and the jeweler remembered

that I liked this ring
and so Richie was able to

literally the exact ring that I wanted

without me knowing or...

- You guys come and
check this out down here.

Check out our new view.

- Is this where the fire came up?

- Yeah, it came up from this way.

- Dad wait, where's Concow, is it like?

- It's way in that direction.

Watch your step.

- What is this?

Oh, this is part of Richie's computer.

It's got like, there's
some kind of circuits.

It's been an ongoing, it's very ongoing.

Everyday you hear about somebody moving.

(slow eerie music)

You think of something
that you left behind

that was sentimental to you.

Some days you feel so happy and grateful

and then other days you feel
like you can't stop crying.

It's like mourning a death.

I have lost someone very
close to me in my life

and it was very similar
to that kind of grief.

It was like very much
that level of heartbreak

to lose Paradise.

(slow instrumental music)

(indistinct)

- Claim your space.

- Where's Max?

- It's video, you can move.

- It's Christmas Eve and I'm in Aptos

and we're celebrating
Christmas here at a home

we rented, it's near the beach.

We've never done this before.

- Do you wanna film me screaming at my kid

to get him in here for dinner?

It's about to happen.

- Get in here!

- Hi Clayton.

- You should probably get his name right

if you're gonna make a
real run at Klay Thompson.

- It's not Thompson. I
thought it was Thomas.

- No, it's Thompson.

Clayton Thomas is not a basketball player.

- That is who I was talking to online.

- Klay Thompson, Thompson.

- I don't think we're coordinated.

We shoulda rehearsed.

- Good luck, Ron Howard.

- So our family tradition has been,

at least for the last 27
years that I can count

is that everyone comes
to my home for Christmas.

But it was obvious then
that we weren't gonna have

Christmas in Paradise, which is hard

because that's sort of just
part of the family fabric.

And you know, when you're
facing change, you think,

'well, it's never gonna be the same,

that's not the way we do it.'

And it's turned out to
really be very lovely.

Oh my gosh, it's beautiful.

It's bittersweet because we
miss the Paradise Christmas

but this is a beautiful place too

and hopefully in another
year or two or three,

we'll be celebrating
Christmas in Paradise again.

- [Ev Durán] Despite the
historically destructive fire

just six weeks earlier

there was a version of
Christmas in Paradise.

The annual ice skating rink was built

and many traveled a great distance

for this small taste of familiarity.

For many of these
suddenly homeless people,

this was their first
time visiting the town

they love since it was
almost completely destroyed.

- Thank you for coming and
what a great time to be here,

it's so fun to see
people and I don't know,

I don't shake hands much
anymore, seems we hug each other

more than anything else,
have you noticed that?

- Five, four, three, two, one, woo,

(crowd cheering)

- [Ev Durán] While it may
seem like a simple event

from an outside perspective,

even something as
inauspicious as a community

Christmas tree lighting feels
like a tremendous victory

for these residents.

For the people of Paradise,
like the Rauschers

and Susan Davis, chaos and uncertainty

are now the defining
characteristics of every single day.

In the span of a few short hours,

on a day seemingly like any
other, their homes gone,

their things gone, their jobs gone,

their entire sense of
community and history

and even reality itself, gone.

What would you do?

How do you replace Paradise?

(slow calm music)

People are drawn to live in Paradise

for a great many reasons.

For Susan it was an opportunity
for her and her husband

to move their young
family from the Bay Area

to a smaller, safer community.

A great place to raise
kids and someday retire.

In 1991 they did just that.

Her daughter, 11 years old at the time,

wasn't particularly thrilled
at the prospect of leaving

all of her friends
behind and starting over.

But her son, who had just
turned seven, was excited,

like, super excited.

And I can tell you that with confidence

because that handsome
little second grader was me.

I'm Susan's son, my name is Ev Durán,

I made this movie, hi.

And it's true, I can always
remember loving Paradise.

My earliest memories of the town

are visiting my uncle and aunt
and cousins in the eighties

and being completely transfixed
by how green everything was,

how many trees there were, how
the roads were all so hilly.

I thought driving through Paradise

was like being on a roller coaster.

To a little kid from San
Jose, Paradise seemed

like a far away magical
town in the forest.

We first lived in a rental on
lower Sawmill until my parents

bought our house on Starlight
Court, off of Neal Road.

We lived there for seven
years and I loved that place.

- I'll save you!

- I made a lot of really
good Kung Fu movies

with my friends in the garage.

When my parents divorced, my
mother and I moved into a home

she bought on Sesame Street.

Yes, Sesame Street.

See uh, this here's the kitchen.

It's a small street off of
Dean Road on upper Pentz.

It's where my mother has lived since.

I attended Paradise Elementary School,

Paradise Intermediate School and in 2002,

I graduated from Paradise High School.

- Senior pranks, have they gone too far?

- Paradise was a wonderful
place to grow up.

I loved weekend visits
to All the Best Video,

or summer days spent
swimming at local river spots

or being dragged behind
a boat at Lake Oroville.

- Oh shit.

- I loved riding my bike
with my friends to Hootch Hut

for candies and sodas or
hanging out at the Duck Pond

or at the hot trails or at
the Safeway parking lot.

I loved going to Paradise
High School Football games and

feeling the unmatched energy
of an entire town at my back.

I just loved it all.

And although some of my
particular affections for the town

might just be specific to me.

The general sentiment of loving Paradise

is almost universal, trust me.

I've talked to a lot of people.

(water flowing)

But for those of you watching
who aren't from Paradise,

you probably won't know
any of these things.

You might not even know where Paradise is.

- I knew nothing about
Paradise, as a matter of fact

I had to look it up on a map.

- We'll get back to him
though, he's a good guy.

Here's a little background
on the town of Paradise.

Just the basics that you need to know.

To tell you about them
I'm gonna turn you over

to Mark Thorp, the Executive Director

of the Golden Nugget Museum,

the town's primary historical archive.

Mark, in true small town Paradise fashion

also happens to be my cousin.

Here he is in 1987,
helping me put my shoes on.

And here he is today.

- Paradise being in the foothills

of the Sierra Nevada Mountains,
a town of 26, 27,000 people,

which grows at about 3% per year,

cooler by about five degrees
from the valley floor.

Close enough to a lot of
international activity

associated with the Chico State Campus

a university town of Chico.

But still just 10 miles away
where you could come back up

to the community and again seeking out

the quiet, kind of slower paced life.

I love Paradise because
it's a beautiful area.

You are close to any
river you'd like to go to,

you're close to the mountains,
you're close to the valley.

There's a lot of history in this area

and I kind of like researching the history

and being able to go explore these places.

- [Ev Durán] Jason's right,
there is a ton of history

in this area.

I'm actually ashamed to admit
that I didn't know that much

about it, at least not until
I started making this film.

Guys like Donald Criswell
helped set me straight.

- I think this was a little known,

little explored area until
John Bidwell came here.

He led the first wagon
train into California.

Paradise still was the outback.

It was on the way to Butte
Meadows and Colby Meadows,

where cattle pastured in the
spring and summer months,

then they were brought
back down into the valley

in the fall by ranchers like
Clark and Neal and Pentz.

Paradise was kind of on the
way and then the Gold Rush hit.

- [Ev Durán] In 1859,
a 54 pound gold nugget,

the largest ever found, was
discovered in the rivers

surrounding Paradise, making
the town a popular place.

- There were still mines
when I was a kid being worked

in Paradise actually,
down off of Bille Road

and, Lucky John mine for example,

(loud explosion)

- Wow.

- But it was such a beautiful place to be.

The climate certainly is
like the best in the world

or right up there with it.

And it turns out that you
can roll up a newspaper

and stick it in the ground
in Paradise and it will grow.

I mean, it's a great
fertile agricultural place.

- [Ev Durán] Orchards sprung
up all across Paradise

and the area was soon populated
by ranchers and farmers

- Among one of those first early ranchers

was this gentleman who came
up what's now Neal Road.

I live right off of Neal
Road and as they arrived into

town, it gets to be a
100° in Paradise sometimes

he apparently plopped down
under a tree and said,

boys this is Paradise.

And that's the version that I believe

is probably most accurate.

The other one was the old mining thing,

the pair o' dice, you know that two dice

that you roll on the table.

Yeah, I don't know.

- [Ev Durán] No matter
how the town got its name,

the name stuck, it felt appropriate.

As Paradise evolved into and
throughout the 20th century

it became an appealing
place to raise a family

for people from all walks of life.

- I'm Dorothy Fallen and this
is my husband, Don Fallen.

We moved to Paradise in 1962.

We lived in Chico and we
used to go up to Paradise

so we could bowl on their four
lane bowling alley on Skyway.

And they had a nice
drive-in theater back then

that we really enjoyed
so we spent a lot of time

going to Paradise.

And when the kids got
old enough for school,

we moved up there and Don,

his parents followed construction.

He didn't want his kids to be
moved from school to school.

So he always said, when they start school

we was gonna stay in one place.

So he says we can starve
to death in Paradise

as well as anywhere else,
that's where we're staying.

When we moved there,
there was 9,000 people.

There was... - On the whole Ridge,

there was two four-way stop signs,

one at Pearson and Clark

and one at Elliott and Skyway, wasn't it.

There was no stoplights
or anything like that.

And it's changed a lot.

- [Ev Durán] Even as
Paradise changed and grew

it never lost that small town spirit

that so many of its residents loved.

- You have groups of families

that have been born and raised here

over generation over generation.

So even though you may not
know the person next to you,

your grandparents may be
friends with their grandparents,

which automatically connects you.

- From you know a demographic standpoint

I think a lot of people
equated it to a retirement

community, I don't know if that's a

fully accurate description.

It was a vibrant town,
there were lots of people

there from different generations

and different walks of life,

but all in all, a great small town,

American community filled
with some really great people.

- You could go down the
road and wave at people

because it was small enough
that you'd see lot of say

it five or six cars you'd at least

know one or two of the people.

- You could walk down the road

and people would smile and wave to you

instead of looking at you like this

and putting their head down.

- It was beautiful, the
trees, it was a forest.

It was a very close knit, small town.

So just the fact that
everybody knew everybody,

everybody was friendly, I
just fell in love with it.

We would tell people even on trips

or when we lived on the East coast

we would describe it
as this really pretty,

super clean, that we'd always
say the tap water tastes like

bottled water, there's
this really no litter,

just the cleanest air
and very nice people,

but a little bit remote.

But I liked how free it felt.

That was the big thing as
we would always tell people,

you know, we live on this road
and there's horses going by

and we have a bear that
knocks our trash can

over every night and people's
chickens come in our yard

and things like that.

- But the beauty was in
the trees and the hills,

we had the canyon like on one
side was the Feather River,

the other side we had Butte Creek Canyon

so that's the reason why
we call it the Ridge.

- Beautiful and amazing,
wonderful place to grow up.

I always told people that
you had a lake below you,

lakes above you, a canyon
on both sides with rivers,

like a childhood dream.

You could go hunting up in the mountains

and then Chico was eight
miles away so you could get

some city life if you wanted.

- And it was a place where your kids,

they'd get up in the morning,
they'd get on their bicycles

they'd run down to Kunkle
Lake, fish all day, you know,

run around town, come home.

You didn't worry about anything
happening to them, you know,

you knew they'd be home
in time for dinner.

- [Ev Durán] What were some
things, pre-fire obviously,

either landmarks or businesses
or just like Paradise things

that you guys really liked?

- Oh wow, well right off
the bat, Juice & Java, yeah.

- Juice & Java.

- Of course Juice & Java.

- I went to that coffee shop
for literally, gosh 20 years.

- We grew up going to Juice & Java,

going to Juice & Java in high school,

skipping class to go to Juice & Java.

- And now were able to
take our daughter there

to get a smoothie.

- [Ev Durán] For many people in Paradise

Juice & Java was an
institution. Delicious coffee,

tons of seating, stellar
personalized service...

J & J was a favorite of
Paradisians of all ages.

The owner is a man named Geoffrey Greitzer

and I've known him for
what feels like forever.

My older sister used
to work at Juice & Java

when I was a kid and
Geoffrey would sometimes come

to our family birthday parties.

Here's a picture of he and
I at my mom's 40th in 1997.

I'm dressed as a clown for some reason...?

When I got older, I worked at
Juice & Java for five years.

It's probably my most
favorite job I've ever had.

Geoffrey is a character
through and through

and never boring.

I'll let one of my former
co-workers explain a bit further.

- Oh Geoffrey.

You know, when I sat
down for my interview,

which was on the spot,
I was not expecting it.

But I walked in and he sat
me down and interviewed me,

I was not prepared for it
all, my now mother-in-law

was in the car waiting
for me and so I'm like,

can I go tell my ride that
I'm going in for an interview?

But during the interview one
thing that always stuck with me

is he looks at me and
he says, "I'm a Gemini,

and I'm a childish asshole."

And I was like, who says
that during an interview?

And he definitely could
be, which I'm okay saying,

he said it himself, so I'm
just not arguing with him.

But he also, Geoffrey has a huge heart.

- [Ev Durán] And I can vouch for that.

Geoffrey once reached
into the cash register

and just gave me $900 to buy
a truck, like out of the blue.

- I think when you can work anywhere

and you kind of feel like it's a family,

that's not something that everybody gets.

And for Geoffrey, I think that,
that was really big for him

is to be able to support each other.

- Hello, I'm Geoffrey Greitzer,
owner of Juice & Java.

I've been here 23 years,
I've been in Paradise 24

and built this restaurant 23 years ago

and this is what it looks like now.

It's, lost everything,
we lost two businesses

with this building and our house

and a lot of great memories.

When this fire came down
I heard a lot of comments

from ex-employees and how
much they miss this place

and how much it meant to them.

'Cause it was a pretty tight group.

It wasn't just, hey, I'm going to work,

the boss is an asshole, blah, blah, blah.

You know what I'm saying? I'm
sure there was plenty of that

but there was, God the
memories, the different,

some of the things...
going bowling together,

getting a limo with all the employees

and going out for Christmas dinner

and employees projectile
vomiting at nice restaurants

and things like that, oh yeah.

I wanted to create like a
"Cheers" type of atmosphere

where people would know everybody.

And that definitely came to fruition.

I mean, it's great to feel
that close to the community

and it's quite an honor
to have that opportunity.

- [Ev Durán] If it's not
obvious from the look

on Geoffrey's face, Juice & Java shared

a special connection with
the town of Paradise.

Many customers would visit
every single day of the week.

And then when Friday rolled
around and the sun began to set,

there was something else very important

to the people of Paradise.

- Well, it's a football
crazy town obviously.

It's interesting with football because,

when I first got up there
in the mid nineties,

they were not good, but
people still came to games

- Go Bobcats!

- And then Rick came along
and they started to win.

- I don't know the win/loss record

but we've been, in 20 years,
we've been in the section

championship 12 times,
we've won it six times,

we've been in the playoffs
18 years out of the 20

and we've won 10 league championships.

- And then it became something

you had to be a part of the football team.

It wasn't quite Texas football,

but there was a happening, right.

- Football was really,
at least for my boy,

it was the reason he went to school.

It was the reason he got
grades that were good enough

to stay on the football team.

It was really important to him.

- This whole town seems
like they're so involved.

It's almost like a movie
that you would see that,

it's Friday night, "Friday Night Lights,"

the whole town comes out.

- Those four seconds that
we get in between whistles,

we were gonna get after people.

And we created a reputation that,

I mean, you heard all kinds of rumors

and oh, they're doing this
up there, they're doing that,

no, we had a passion for the game.

- Whenever I thought of
Paradise and now especially,

I think it's a football town,
that's how I describe it.

Football is really important
and it's important to me,

and it's important to the
community, and to our high school.

- The culture was so great,
what Coach Prinz built there

and it continues, to
be able to sustain that

for that many years and
have kids continually

coming through the program and bought in,

is something that's really special.

- [Ev Durán] So that's
Paradise in a nutshell.

A pretty wonderful place to grow up.

Not perfect by any stretch,

like every town we had our problems,

but by and large, it
was just a good place.

A tight knit town with a
strong sense of community.

The kind of small town where
high school football was King

or a local coffee shop could feel like

the center of the universe.

It was our own personal
hideaway in the woods.

And I'd wager to say that most
of the residents of Paradise

felt connected to one another,
a part of a larger whole.

It was beautiful.

It was safe.

It was home.

There was only one real
omnipresent threat to Paradise,

but you know that, that's why we're here.

- Oh, we always knew there
was gonna be a big one.

(slow suspenseful music)

- During my tenure in Paradise,

I've probably had to
evacuate at least four times

that I'm sure of.

- We knew we lived in a fire-prone area.

I don't think the fear consumed us,

but we were always aware of it,

there were always fires nearby.

- In my experience there
was always fires around.

Nothing ever got close.

I kinda thought of Paradise
to be like a safe haven

from all natural disasters.

That's truly how I looked at it.

Like no earthquakes, no floods,

no fire is gonna burn the whole town.

- When you have what's called
the wildland urban interface,

which is basically building
your homes in the forest,

there is a lot of risk.

We know the situation that
we're in here is always been

a potential major wildland fire.

I always said, and many people
would quote me as saying,

"Oh, chief, he always says,

it's not a matter of if, it's when."

- It's not if, but when.

- It wasn't if, it was when.

We all knew that it was
imminent, there had been threats.

And if you look at it over an overlay,

over the last 150 years,
you'll notice that

there have been several fires
that have encroached upon

the plateau, which we
are, between large canyons

that generate large winds.

- I frankly think I was a
little too blasé about it.

Like, oh, it's not going to happen to us,

despite having been here in 2008.

(slow suspenseful music continues)

- [Ev Durán] In 2008, the Humboldt Fire,

started by an arsonist,

wreaked tremendous havoc on Paradise.

That fire destroyed 87
homes, 167 outbuildings

and over 100 vehicles.

For those of us who lived
in Paradise at the time,

it was a truly frightening event.

When it was over, I can
remember thinking, 'Man, I hope

that was the big one they've
always talked about.'

- We were evacuated in 2008.

We were evacuated for about a week,

and I think everyone's awareness of fire

was really heightened that season.

- 2008 was a lot of ways a,
I called it a close call.

Even though I'm sure the people who,

the 74 people who lost their
homes in lower Paradise area,

don't feel like it was a close call.

From the standpoint of
what the potential was,

it was a close call.

- The impact of that fire
was maybe an eyeopener

for a lot of people.

- That I think was my
first real experience with,

Oh my gosh!

We live on a mountain and
we're kind of stuck here

type of thing, where I had
not necessarily a fear,

but an enlightening moment, I suppose.

- 2008 was very scary.

And that's a time that many, many people

evacuated, including us.

In that particular instance,
I think we were away from home

for several nights before the
fire was eventually contained.

- In 2008, and I mean every
square inch of this ranch,

and the 27,000 acres around it, burned...

if it wasn't rock or metal, it was ash.

10 years later, this place burned again.

- Normal day, about 6:30 in the morning,

I went out the front door and
there was a plume of smoke,

coming in that corner over there.

And being here in Paradise,
you're used to having fires.

And so that was a fire,

but didn't look like it was that ominous,

like the entire town was
gonna be wiped off the map.

- So I was up probably by
about quarter to seven,

I'd made coffee, sitting
in my favorite chair,

and sipping my coffee, and
just sort of looking back

over my shoulder, out through the windows,

toward the backyard and
seeing it was so smoky.

- It started out as a normal day.

I have two morning classes, the
first one starts at 5:00 am.

So got here, opened up
the gym, do our workout,

6:00am another class comes
in, by the time they're done,

I walk them out 'cause it's
about 7:15, nice sunny day,

and we see a big cloud
of smoke over there.

Because we're kind of
immune to it, we're like,

oh, wonder where the fire's at?

But that was about it.

- About 7:30, we heard there was a fire

in the canyon, but didn't
even think twice about that,

'cause there's always
a fire in the canyon.

I'd gotten a text message about 7:30

from the Town Manager,
something they'd passed on

from CalFire, that there
was a fire at Pulga.

They were watching it
and they were hitting it

with everything they had.

- I was listening to KCHO
as I do every morning,

and they said, there's a fire in Pulga,

which wasn't particularly alarming because

that's so far away.

- The perspective was basically,

we're gonna just gonna do this again.

And then in fact, yeah, there are warnings

that are coming out, there
are people, neighbors

coming by expressing concern,
the fire's over in Pulga,

that's a distance away,
we've seen this before

in different locations and
treated it just like that.

- My son said,

"Mommy, I thought it was
supposed to be sunny today."

And I said, "It is."

He said "But the sun's a weird color."

And I walked out and I said,

"I wonder if there's a
fire," and I smelled the air,

and it was a little smoky.

And we get so many fires
in Northern California

that I really wasn't
that worried about it.

Fires all the way up in
Shasta will sometimes make

the sun hazy or whatever.

- It seemed pretty relaxed.

I was a little scared that
there's a bunch of smoke,

but nothing like out of the normal,

I didn't feel scared in any way.

- Me and my girlfriend
woke up that morning

and we went outside and just heard

the wind going through the
canyon like a freight train.

I turned to her and said, "This
isn't good, this scares me."

- I was at home when I
first learned of a fire,

wildfire up in the Pulga area.

And initially it didn't
cause me a lot of concern

because that's a fairly
remote part of the county,

it's not heavily populated.

But I did think to myself, I can't believe

it's November and we're having a wildfire.

(fire sparks crackle)

- The dynamics of this
fire are really unique.

Picture this: a fire is burning
to the east of Paradise.

It's burning in an area that
has a significant fire history,

the Concow area, Yankee Hill/Concow area.

This fire had occurred from
the same location and burned

in one night, it burned
five miles back in 2008,

to the edge of Paradise,

there's a history of fire moving quickly.

Part of the dilemma of
this fire was the fact that

most of those fuels
had burned 10 years ago

and were in a 10 year,
sort of ripe condition

because when a forest goes away,

it's replaced by lighter fuels.

So the regrowth that occurred
over the last 10 years,

created a lot of fuel load.

So now this fuel load's
on fire and what happens

with the fuel load, is
that it was very dry,

record setting levels for
the month of November,

ready to burn, under a
heavy wind condition,

not just the Jarbo Gap
wind which we locals know,

is a nightly occurrence in the summer,

but also a huge gradient wind

that was from a high pressure

to low pressure, that
created a much higher stack

of wind. That comes into play

in that, when the fire developed
in this really dry fuel,

it sends up a column.

In this case it went
up with all that energy

and it hit somewhere around,

I'm gonna say about the 5,000 foot level.

It hit shearing winds that
were probably exceeded

a 100 miles an hour.

Not the surface winds that
were being measured at 42 to 45

on Jarbo Gap, but over a
100 mile an hour winds.

So this superheated air full
of debris is sheared off

and launches thousands of embers

in a blowtorch that keeps them hot.

Because typically what
happens with embers is that,

you'll get some ember fallout

and that ember fallout will ignite fires.

But as the air rises like a thunderstorm,

the fuels have an opportunity to cool.

And as they come back down, not near,

as many of them are, are hot embers.

Well, in this case, they were
in the middle of a blowtorch

being launched by these
above surface winds,

right at the town of Paradise.

(siren sounds)

We also knew because we have
an elaborate evacuation plan,

had and still have,

that we had potential
problems getting people out

because of the sheer
number of people versus

the number of road options that we had.

- Concow, Magalia, and Paradise,

you're talking about maybe 60,000 people,

that's a lot of people to get out.

And Paradise isn't really
built for a mass evacuation

at the very same time,

which is why they developed their plan.

This is why they did that
'cause they learned in 2008.

If you gotta get everybody
out, it's gonna be a mess.

And it was.

- There were a couple of young men,

running through the nearby property

and they were yelling,
"Fire! Fire! Get out!"

So I yelled back, "How close is it?"

And they said, "We can see the flames."

- You started to see cars
kind of backing up on Skyway

or whatever and I was getting annoyed.

I'm like, what's going on?

Why are we already backed up on this road?

So I had to go up on
the sidewalk to drive,

to get to my house, which is
like five minutes from here.

- My daughter Brielle was
born the morning before

on the seventh at 8:18, November 7th.

We were in the hospital & because
I had to have a C-section,

I was hooked up to an IV, I
was hooked up to a catheter,

I had only gotten out of bed
once in the previous 24 hours.

- Then I heard it was at
Ponderosa School at about 8:45.

And I'm like, uh oh, this is different.

- My 24 hour old baby and
I were escorted outside,

we were put in the back
of a Sheriff's vehicle.

And so I look over and you
could just see the flames

coming over the canyon
towards the hospital.

- And we could hear, like, the fire,

we could hear people screaming,

we could hear propane tanks exploding.

So I took one last picture
of the house from over here,

right before we got in the car,

and, 'cause it dawned on me
it would be the last time

that we'd see it.

- So if the fire was
coming from the canyon,

it should have moved
progressively, well it leapfrogged

and was into town very quickly.

- So I threw some clothes on
over my pajamas and got the dog

and I grabbed an afghan of
my mom's and I pulled out

and I could see in a distance
that there was a police car.

And I thought, I'm gonna go check with him

to see how much time
we have, like an hour?

He says, he said, "You have no time."

You have to get out.

- [Man] Holy shit dude.

Just be safe.

- Fly, fly, fly.

- Holy shit, holy shit.

- So it's just a mad panic to get out.

You have flames on your
left and your right

and you see houses and trees
and you can feel the heat

coming through the car.

- [Woman] It's so hot,
it's so hot, keep going!

- It sounds like the whole world

was avalanching toward us.

It was the craziest sound I'd ever heard.

It sounded like Armageddon.

Exactly like I would picture Armageddon.

- It's getting darker and
darker to a point where

it's now like black and you
see the white ash coming down,

you're hearing more and more that popping.

People are all stuck,
people are freaking out.

- [Woman] This is Pentz
Road, this is Pentz!

- And I remember
specifically one transmission

from a deputy talking about
how the road was blocked

and they were being overtaken by fire,

they were gonna have to
get out of their vehicles

and find a way to shelter in place.

I honestly believed that,
that was the last time

I would ever hear that deputy.

(slow eerie music)

- You know the correct
side to go down Skyway,

as you get past Neal then
you start your descent.

And you can see the canyon,
that's where the canyon starts.

You can see the fire and
the flames right... and

people are just, trying to,
like cattle going to slaughter.

I'm like, I don't think I
want to get into that lane,

so I decided to go around a couple of cars

and go to the opposite way.

'Cause I know there
was two lanes coming up

and emergency vehicles
could still make it up.

So I scooted around and went that way,

I went, drove around, there
was a little building,

maybe 200 yards, everything was clear,

and then everything changed.

Everything got dark, I
mean completely black,

darker than night.

And then you see trees on
both sides of the road,

just on fire and things
flying over the road,

and you're looking everywhere,

and all of a sudden you're
just surrounded by fire.

Like, well, wait a
minute, I was just, oops,

I made a wrong turn.

That's what it felt like.

And so you had to keep
driving, you can't get out.

So I start to drive through the fire

and you're kind of doing
this and you're looking

'cause it's like, wow, this is,

the light bulb is starting to come on and

you're going, oh, wait a
minute, this is dangerous.

And so I get around this little building

and there's an opening from
this side of the canyon

to this side, whoom, there
comes a tunnel of fire,

and it engulfs my car.

You can see it on the
hood, the windshield,

behind you, I'm in a tunnel
of fire, I'm thinking

oh my goodness, crap, I'm
dead, I'm gonna die here.

Just keep driving, keep
driving and keep driving.

And it's getting hotter.

And then now you're
getting pelted by embers

that are the size of bricks.

You could hear it going,

(pounds hand with fist)

and your car is going, slowing down,

and I'm thinking, please my tires

don't pop, don't pop.

And then the other things coming up

were, you're starting to
say, well, I hope the smoke

takes me first, before I die,

And I'm thinking, shit
I don't wanna get out

and run in this thing. It's gonna hurt.

I don't want to stop and so

and when that fire came
and hit my windshield,

your natural reaction
is to duck because it's,

so I ducked and as I
ducked under, I got this,

like tiger came out of me
and all I could think about

was my son and I yelled out,

"Charlie! I'm not gonna die here!"

Sit up, put it in third gear, punched it,

I didn't care what I hit, I
had to get out of the fire

'cause it was starting to get hot.

So I just kept going and going and going

and probably another 60, 70 yards

just before the Paradise sign
with "all its name implies"

remember that one? I come out
just a little bit past it,

actually, not before.

And it's open, it's clear, it's open.

Ah, yeeeeeeah!.

But to come out of that
fire and, and to yell

like a banshee is like, oh, I made it.

And for a while there even
though it wasn't such a,

it was just less than a minute.

It felt like an eternity
because I'm pretty,

pretty sure I was gonna die.

I mean, just almost, just, yeah.

- My mom left to go get my
brother and sister-in-law's

dogs and she forgot her phone.

So it was like, I don't
know four and a half hours

of just like not knowing where she was

and just hearing that people
are dying on Edgewood.

- I wanna say it was
like this driveway here,

we were stopped and we
had a clear view up it.

And we're just sitting here
and waiting for the cars

to one by one merge on to Pearson.

And it was pitch, it was like
midnight, it was so dark.

- We finally made it up the
road to right in front of the

Lutheran daycare in time
to watch that ignite.

And we sat there and watched
it burn to the ground

with, the little girl I had
just picked up from there

sat there and watched her
school burn to the ground.

At that same time while I'm
sitting there in traffic

with my two little girls,

I had a, she was a lady
probably mid 40's or so

came running down the middle
of Pentz Road by my truck,

screaming "There's people
on fire back there!"

"There's people on fire back there!"

"Somebody help them,
there's people on fire!"

- I was wondering how we
were gonna make it out

and how fast the fire would come.

And if our, if we would
have to get out on foot.

- [Woman] I'm not dying right here!

(fast dramatic music)

- There was a mobile home park over here

that was fully engulfed
and watched that burn

and then we watched this
side of the road start also,

and we just kind of watched
it creep through these houses

and these yards getting
closer and closer and closer.

Meanwhile, we're not able to go anywhere

we're just sitting there in the truck

kind of wondering if we were
gonna be able to get out.

- You never want to, as a
parent, look at your kids

and go, 'I don't know how
to save you right now,'

like I don't...

And all I could think of as
the fire was getting closer,

it was getting hotter and
the car started overheating.

And I kept thinking like,

I'm gonna watch my kids choke
and burn to death in front

of me and I don't know what to do.

Like, I don't know what to do.

- I sat there for, had to be 45 minutes

while the world was
burning down around us.

And I had to think to myself,

'Am I really gonna sit here and watch

my girls burn to death?'

And that kind of

got me moving, and I
wasn't going to sit there

and I wasn't gonna let that happen.

So I pulled off in to a little side road

where I wasn't going to block anyone in

and I got the girls out of
the truck and I just said,

"Come on girls, we're
going on a field trip."

And you know, they're
scared out of their minds,

but I tried to make it as
relaxed and fun as I could

while I'm panicking inside.

And we just walked up the road
and kind of ran for a ways.

And we got, finally caught
up to where my uncle was

in my grandpa's classic truck and he was,

20 cars ahead of us or so.

And I turned to him and I just said,

"I'm getting my girls outta
here, if fire gets any closer,

you get out of here too, I love you."

And we took off, and I
had to go up to my dad

who was ahead of all of them
and say "Dad, I love you,

I'm getting the girls out here."

He said, "You're doing the right thing."

- And my son just said,
"There's the fire."

And we looked, and you could just see,

like over the crest of that
hill, it was just bright

and then you'd see like the
flames kind of coming up

one by one and then after a
moment just full-on flames.

- So we almost had to jump
out of the car, but if we did

we'd probably burn up because
the fire was right there,

like super close and was moving very fast.

- Richie, started saying,

"Why aren't we using this other lane?"

like, "there's nobody's coming back."

"You're an idiot If you're
coming back at this point,

like you got, no one should be
coming back to their houses."

And we look over and the fire
was gonna catch all the leaves

and branches and bushes
on the right next to us

and then the car was gonna catch on fire.

And so Richie said "Fuck this."

"We're not gonna die right here."

"We're not doing this" & he
said "It only takes one person."

And he turned out in the
lane and just hit the gas.

And he said it was terrifying,
because he didn't know

we were on this hill, we
couldn't see over the hill.

We didn't know if someone
was going to be bombing down

the hill coming back
into the neighborhood,

trying to get to their house
and luckily there wasn't

and we looked behind us
in the rear-view mirror

and just all the people
started pouring into

the open lane behind us.

- And when we got up
to the top of Edgewood,

the cars up here were
just slowly merging on

one at a time, taking their
time, waiting for someone

to give them an opening.

And while it's real nice to be polite,

they didn't realize how
close the fire was back here.

And so we just cut in and
started telling people,

"Make three lanes on
Pearson, it's wide enough."

- I started knocking on
people's doors and I was like

"You gotta make a third lane."

"You gotta get people out of here."

And they all started squeezing together

and squeezing together and
we just kept going up cars

and beating on doors
and I would tell people,

roll your window down and I would say,

"We gotta make a third lane," I said

"Edgewood lane is on fire we have to get

people off Edgewood."

- [Ev Durán] What did
you think about the way

your parents acted on that day?

- They felt like heroes
basically to me and I felt,

I just felt better that we
were gonna get more people out.

And yeah, they just felt like
heroes and that we've had the

chance at surviving this,
which I didn't think before.

- It took us an hour and a
half to get from our house

to outside of Paradise which
is only about three miles.

And I can't imagine for the
people that were in there all

day and you know, the people
that never even made it out...

- Well, here's our house,
everything around us is on fire.

Oh man this is bad.

Can't really see very
well, ah man this is bad.

There goes our house,
it's all engulfed now.

Well don't know what to say,
just thought I would video this

in case it's the last time
some of you guys see me.

It's kind of a weird feeling
when you honestly think

you're gonna die.

Little update I guess, everything's
exploded on this house.

I had only initially
taken the video because

there was one time in
particular where I could hear

the explosions and animals
were running into me.

And I really thought I was gonna die.

I thought it was a really bad
decision to stay up there.

And I figured if I made the
video that Laurie would see it.

(slow music)

I don't know, it's kind
of silly when I say it,

but a buddy of mine, Tom, he
had dropped off a day or two

before, this little four by six trailer

and it was full of sod.

And when that one time when
the explosions were loud,

it got dark and I really thought that

man this was it, I'm gone.

I rolled out that sod.

Here, got this little sod house
right here and small hose,

keep watering it I guess, someplace to go.

And so I just wet down the sod and

I'd wet down underneath of it.

And I figured I would
jump underneath there

and it would buy me about 15 minutes.

I said a prayer and figured
well, if God wants me to die

it's my time, but apparently
it wasn't my time then.

And I'm still here.

It's in God's hands now.

That's all the power I need,

We can always replace this material stuff

but you can't replace you. Amen.

(fire crackling)

- We started our evacuation
at 7:45 in the morning

and I made it to Chico around 2:30,

met up with my daughter's
mom and my step mom

and my girlfriend at
the Raley's parking lot.

And we still hadn't heard
from my dad and my uncle.

And I didn't see how they
could have made it out

if they left after I
did. I thought they had

possibly died to come
save my travel trailer.

So that was very heavy on my mind

until about an hour and a half later

they finally made it down to Chico

and were able to give me
a call and let me know

they were safe.

- We got separated, that
was the toughest part was

I in this big box van weaseled through

and got down to Chico where we had talked

that we were going to meet
and my wife wasn't there

I'm walking back and forth
like at the bottom of the hill,

looking for her, like freaking
out, pissed off at myself.

It was incredibly emotional,
incredibly heart wrenching.

Just thinking that I had left
her and so it worked out okay.

We found each other a couple hours later.

- So after about 2:30 was
when they were able to start

flowing people out of the
temporary refuge areas

between 2:30 and 3:30 I'll say the town

pretty much cleared out.

So from then on, I was just
checking on what was left

and what was gone.

I remember the first time
I gave them the answer

to how much do you think
has gone and I said "80%."

I'm sure that was their, oh shit moment,

'cause they hadn't been there, right.

They hadn't seen it and they're going,

and you can hear it in their
voice going "how much?"

And I said, "I think 80% is gone."

And that was, you know, the reality of it,

it got worse, actually.

(slow somber music)

- The operation to locate
people who perished in the fire,

all told when it's all said
and done, we used about

10,000 people from agencies
throughout California

as well as five states.

They searched 18,000 locations,
some of those locations

were searched twice.

We used coroners' investigators
and law enforcement officers

and National Guard, Search & Rescue,

Urban Search & Rescue, firefighters,

forensic anthropologists, cadaver dogs,

all of those resources
were brought together.

And as it stands today,

it looks like 85 individuals
perished in the fire.

And I certainly don't want to discount

or lessen the traumatic
impact of that fact,

but it does stand in stark contrast

to the number of people
that had to be evacuated.

I mean I think the estimate
is some 46,000 people

were evacuated out of the area.

And the fact that the fatality
is 85 when you consider

how much worse it could
have been is remarkable.

- As bad as it was & as how
terrible it is to lose 85 lives

It's hard to use the term
successful, 'cause I wouldn't

say it was successful, but it was,

let's just say it was probably
better than most people

anticipated that day, knowing
how many people lived up there

and how bad it was.

'Cause I remember sitting
here a couple of days

after the fire thinking
there's going to be at least

two to three thousand
dead in this whole thing.

- I also thought that
thousands of people were dead

because I thought once
I got through that flame

then everything behind me was burning.

I that's what i thought and
all these cars behind me.

- Just knowing how the
fire was coming this way

I thought it was gonna engulf
just every car on Pearson

that was behind us.

I'm really legitimately shocked
that more people didn't die.

- I'm absolutely amazed
that the fatality rate

is as low as it is.

It is sad that we lost people, absolutely.

- [Ev Durán] As of one
year after the Camp Fire

here's what we know.

It is the deadliest and
most destructive fire in the

recorded history of California, so far.

It immediately claimed 85
lives and is responsible for

taking at least several more since.

It burned over 153,000 acres
and destroyed 18,800 structures

including 14,000 homes and
more than 500 businesses.

The fire started on November
8th and was not formally

extinguished until November
25th, more than two weeks later.

The cause of the fire was a spark,

cast down to the dry earth
from a poorly maintained

electric transmission line
belonging to California

power giant, PG&E.

But in the days immediately
following the fire,

we knew none of this,
the people of Paradise

didn't know the full extent of the damage

and not being allowed
to return to their town

they poured over their
computers and their phones

for any news or status
updates of their home,

their neighborhood,
their beloved community.

- Honestly, I'm not even
sure what day it was,

maybe it might've been day three.

It seemed an eternity,
but I got a photograph

of my property and you just
kind of drop to your knees.

- It seemed like an eternal waiting period

because even once we knew
the status of the house,

and even once we had a photograph of that,

of course we were very eager, like many,

I would say not everyone,
but many, many people

so eager to get up there.

And part of that is the
hope that amongst the rubble

you'll find something.

(slow somber music)

- I went up on Saturday
after the fire with CalFire

and I was not, I knew it was
bad from what I had heard

and what have you, but
I really didn't expect

the level of devastation that there was.

Driving through, it was
like a total war zone.

- I lost everything,
everything I had of my mom's,

everything from the day my kids was born,

the day we were married, everything.

When I went back up there I broke down

because it looks so terrible,
you know all the burnin',

it was so bad.

It was nothing left, nothing.

- You know what's crazy is,
to be fully honest it didn't

occur to me until two days after the fire.

I couldn't even process everything

I wasn't even thinking about
and then one of my friends

said, "Oh man I'm so glad I
grabbed my kid's baby books."

And the second she said
that I just fell apart

and realized how much I had lost.

- We had hazmat suits and
masks and gloves and booties

and goggles and tried to
be as prepared as we could.

It was, as they said, very hazardous.

I mean shards of metal and glass and muck

because it had rained.

- I was able to take
my camera into Paradise

about a week before the town
re-opened to the public.

And this is video I
took with my cell phone

as I approached my mother's
home for the first time.

I can tell you firsthand
your brain doesn't really

know what to do.

Mine felt like it was
backfiring, sputtering,

trying to load.

I couldn't even really feel
sad about what I was seeing

because it didn't feel like reality.

This couldn't be real, it's a mistake.

Someone is playing a trick on me.

This does not compute.

In the days following I
was able to help my mom

dig through the ashes of
what were once our things

and as I would look at
my mom I would wonder,

what's going to happen to her?

Where's she gonna go?

- Hold on, hold on,
we're gonna go this way,

We're gonna go this way, yeah, good girl.

Do you wanna go see Jim?

Just a minute, just a minute.

Okay go, oh, she's so excited.

And she's so good, she's so good

she just comes even off
leash which we never do.

Hello, go see him, go see him.

- Yes, there he is, there he is.

- We have lived in a hotel
of one sort or another since

November 9th and today is
March 17th, St. Patrick's Day.

So, longer, well I shouldn't say that,

I was gonna say longer than we thought

but who knew what to think?

Nobody knew what to think.

If I stand in central location,
I can show you the kitchen

and I can show you the dining area

and the great room,
living room, family room,

den, dog place.

This is the office.

The secret to the office
is there are lots of things

underneath the table, like
a big box with all the FEMA

papers and all the binders
with the insurance info.

And on top of the office
you can see house plans

that are hopefully gonna
be in the works soon.

So that's our next big step.

So when we were originally displaced

we were in a motel room
which we were over the moon

thankful to have.

We were there for two months

and then we moved here
at the Residence Inn.

So we have this whole living
area and the bedroom/bathroom,

it's 504 square feet and
it feels like a mansion.

We have just been so, so lucky.

- [Ev Durán] Under ordinary circumstances,

it may seem strange to
consider being forced to live

in a hotel room for
five months as "lucky."

But these aren't ordinary circumstances.

And my mother was incredibly
lucky. For many others,

housing, temporary or
otherwise, was far less certain.

Many, like my uncle, were
forced to live in their cars

or in tent cities that
sprang up in the parking lots

of Chico businesses.

Some, like Dorothy and Don and
their large extended family,

were able to stay with relatives
in the surrounding areas.

- We have approximately a
100 plus family members that

lived in Paradise and in
our family alone 22 homes

were burned and lost, 22 families.

- So we've opened up
our house after the fire

and we had out of the 22
families that lost their homes.

We had 11 of the families
living here at one point

and some 45 people.

- [Ev Durán] As the months go by

these shell-shocked
residents struggle to find

some degree of normalcy,
which is exceedingly difficult

when nearly everything you've
ever known has disappeared,

even those things you
once thought indomitable.

(whistle blown )

- Hey, bring it up you guys.

Guys get on a knee.

Here we go, on a knee, let's go.

We're gonna get in six teams,

we're gonna have three games going on.

This is Ev Durán, he is a
graduate of Paradise High School,

and he's doing a
documentary on the Camp Fire

and we're gonna be a part of that, okay?

- [Ev Durán] The Camp Fire struck Paradise

one day before the High School
Football Playoffs were set to

begin and PHS Football,
with its players and coaches

scattered and homeless, was
forced to forfeit their season.

Now, like the entire town,
they face an uncertain future,

both as a school and as a team.

- Numbers wise we're about
half the size, our school is

and that's the same with
football players on campus.

A lot of adjustments every
day, a lot of change.

You're not playing tackle.

- Damn.

They always say that.

- You guys are on film you
bunch of mountain boys.

- We have a home game August
23rd and I think about it

every day right now.

And I know our kids do and
our football team does.

- [Ev Durán] Despite having
their first game back

at PHS on the schedule,
there is no guarantee

that the campus will be ready.

- The kids have to be safe
to be able to go up there.

So the trees, the water,
the soil sampling,

things like that, has to be deemed safe.

The goal for the school
is to have graduation

up there this year.

So if they get graduation up there,

I'll breathe a sigh of relief.

- PHS

- This is our old home, this
is a business my wife and I

started, Custom Made CrossFit.

It's weird to be back, we
haven't been here for a while.

We came right after the fire
but now, what's it been?

- We had a bunch of
house stuff in our attic,

like all of our house
possessions up in our attic.

And so like one little
coffee mug we found made it.

- Oh, there's another one right there.

- That's oh, that's the coffee mug.

- Oh, that's it.

- [Ev Durán] For too many
residents of Paradise

like the Delgados and Geoffrey Greitzer,

they didn't just lose their
homes, they lost their

businesses, their jobs,
their financial security.

But yes, also their houses.

Imagine you woke up tomorrow
and you didn't have a house

and you didn't have a job.

What would you do?

It's almost unfathomable.

But that's what these
people are living through

every single day.

- We have been incredibly lucky,

blessed, compared to some
other people around here.

We had insurance and we had,
we ended up finding a place,

but there's a lot of people that didn't.

That's really tough, really, really tough.

The hardest thing was, or
is, this was ultimately

gonna be retirement.

I just finished paying off
this entire building, land

and everything.

This would be the entrance
to the front of the building.

The first part, as you walked in you would

get the full experience of chocolate.

You would come into the store,

get that heavenly aroma of chocolate.

- [Ev Durán] Just like Geoffrey Greitzer,

Pam and Bill Hartley owned
and operated a quintessential

Paradise business, Joy Lyn's Candies.

This iconic candy shop
was known to collect

international awards for their sweets.

All of which were manufactured
here at this location.

As you guys stand here right now,

I know this has to still
be a little surreal.

How long, I mean, since the fire,

has it taken you to get
to a point where you can,

I mean and maybe it's still not here,

but where you can be here
and not just be overcome?

- Yeah, you go there a little bit

but then you can't spend
a lot of time there,

at least for me and so I'll
pop my brain back out of it

and visit it, like now I'm
visiting it, thinking...

And then you can't talk.

- And I was saying that
as we drove up today,

I said, you know, it's a
little easier with every trip

into town as we drive
through this devastation

to get a little more
accustomed to it because

now we're seeing things cleared off,

now we're seeing good things happening.

And so some of that, the
ugliness is all disappearing

and we're transitioning to another phase.

So it's a little bit easier,
but we do have those moments,

that crying time where you just realize

how quickly life changes.

You're upside down in a couple of hours

and it's hard to sometimes
go back and reflect on that.

You wanna try and keep your
mind in a positive mode

and say, "What can we do now
to help this town rebuild

and make it a better place than it was?"

"How can we be a part of that?"

And let's get active in doing that,

and then that keeps us in
a positive frame of mind,

and we're able to deal
with this a lot better.

- [Ev Durán] Pam and Bill
have already picked out

a new location and are
rebuilding Joy Lyn's in Paradise.

As the town continues
its attempt to recover,

the people who are probably happiest

about every announced
rebuild are the folks

who didn't have to themselves.

Almost everyone in
Paradise lost their homes.

What about the people who didn't?

- What frustrates me
is people say Paradise

was wiped off the map.

No, it was not wiped off the map.

I'm still here and a lot
of people are still here

and Paradise...

- Still exists.

- Paradise is my home,
and so it's like no,

we're not off the map, we're here.

We're clinging to the map
and will continue to cling.

- [Ev Durán] For these
people clinging to the map,

whose homes didn't burn, it's
a uniquely confusing situation

that they find themselves in,

filled with a lot of conflicting emotions.

- It was hard for us,
like "oh, that's great."

And we didn't share it
with a lot of people

because we did have kind
of that survivor's guilt.

It took us a while to really decide,

a lot of people were like, hey
you guys need to just clean

your house up, because
it was smoke damaged

and just get back up there.

And it's like well, there's no water,

we didn't get power for a long time

so how are you gonna
start repairing a house?

- It's very strange being homeless.

It's really, to know you do not
have anything to go back to,

but it's pretty final and
I feel worse for people

that have their houses standing.
I think that's a much worse

situation to be in, you can't
reinhabit them right now,

they need to be repaired
and you're in limbo.

- This finality that Savannah speaks of

can be a valuable thing.

For folks like her and my mom

who lost their homes and
all their possessions

but we're fortunate enough
to have good insurance,

they get to decide how they move forward.

They have that choice:
rebuild, buy nearby,

or buy far away and start completely over.

But if you didn't lose your
home, imagine that reality.

What if overnight your home
was dropped into the middle of

an unrecognizable landscape,

far removed from the community you loved

and everything around you
appears toxic and dangerous.

It's hard to imagine. Burned or spared,

there are no winners here.

- It's been tough.

It's been a battle
financially with insurance,

they don't wanna pay for
things that they should.

And so that's been really
hard and then just the whole,

like the first week
for me was really hard.

It sunk in and was like,
this is our new reality.

Every window I look out, it's a war zone.

- Every day you're like,
you just can't believe it.

You think it's got to
get better, like easier,

but it doesn't.

- There's no family anymore around,

there's no neighbors, there's no friends,

a hospital if something happens, you know.

So that's been tough.

- You know and the decision's
kinda made for you,

the one, our home survived.

Whether we would have been better off

if it had burnt, maybe.

- Yeah there was thoughts
actually at times

it was like, you know what?

Make it easier if it was gone.

That's what I kept thinking
because she kept telling me,

she's like "I won't, I can't
go back, there's no way."

And there's still thoughts,

but we're so tied to the community,

this is where our life has been.

So how do you leave it?

- We'll never understand
what it feels like

to have our home burn to the ground.

We'll never know that pain.

And I feel awful for everyone
that went through that,

almost everyone I know.

And those people will never know

what it's like to live here

while the town tries to come back.

- [Ev Durán] Paradise is coming back,

but with a tragedy this
monumental, the challenges facing

these resilient people are unprecedented

and far from over.

- We try to focus on the
positive, like, looking at,

we lost trees but we gained views

or you know we lost this,
but we're gonna gain this.

And it's like, you can focus
on the positive all you want

but at the same time you're still living

in like a destruction zone
and you have to see it.

We don't ever get to have like
our normal daily life back.

- The longer people are out of the area

the more they settle into their new life,

in the new house, the new
rental, they get into that mode

and they may not come back.

- You know, even if 50% come back,

is the town gonna be solvent?

Will it be able to sustain?

Are we gonna have the services?

A lot things that they
don't have the answers,

they don't know.

- And not having the
hospital now and not sure

what they're doing,

that was a big factor
into Paradise's income

and the schools.

So that's, I don't know
what's gonna come of all that.

- You do have to do some different things

in terms of how you build the town,

but you don't wanna do things
that make it so expensive

and so difficult that people
who want to come home just

don't, 'cause they can't.

- Most of the problem with
the hitches we have is

the enormity of this disaster
and the uniqueness of it.

We've not really seen a
fire as huge as this is

where it's basically almost
burned out an entire culture.

- The Federal Government
and the State, yeah.

They'll help for a short time,

but what happens at the end of that?

So there's a lot of uncertainties,

still, moving forward.

- [Ev Durán] In the midst
of this uncertainty,

another challenge arises,
how to address the scars,

that hide just beneath the surface.

- It's very difficult to put that

and then losing everything you have.

And then now you're on top of that,

you're thinking about
finances, where do you live?

I'm still homeless, five months later.

That's nobody's fault but my own.

But still, all this wrapped up together,

it goes like this,
emotions go up and down.

Yeah, there's post traumatic
stress with it, absolutely.

And it's gonna continue
because there's a lot of

uncertainty still going on.

- [Ev Durán] While interviewing
people for this film,

I heard the phrase "post
traumatic stress disorder,"

or PTSD, quite frequently,
and understandably so.

I wanted to speak to
someone who could offer

valuable insight on the subject,

and maybe recommendations
on how to work through it.

Fortunately, I was able
to find Dr. Steven Thorp,

who is not just a Paradise
High School graduate,

but also an expert in the field of PTSD.

And yes, this is Paradise,
so obviously he's my cousin.

- PTSD is from a traumatic event,

which almost always is a
life or death situation.

So it's either a serious
injury or a risk of death

or the witnessing of
death or serious injury.

One of the most common symptoms

is what we call hyper-vigilance,

which is a sense of being
on guard all the time

after a traumatic event.

And that's very common
in people with PTSD.

And so they're more
edgy, they're more alert.

The people that I treat that have PTSD,

when they walk into a building,

can't just walk into a building
and relax in that room.

They walk into the building

and they're immediately
searching for exits,

they're immediately scanning
the people in the room,

to see if the people are
dangerous or if they have weapons,

and so they can never truly relax.

Not being able stop thinking
about the traumatic event

and yet not wanting to think about it.

So having these unwanted memories

coming into mind is common.

Being worried about any stressors
or what we call triggers.

So these are reminders of the event.

And so that's also very common with PTSD,

that they will avoid
anything that reminds them

and the consequence is that their world

kind of gets smaller and smaller,

and sometimes ultimately so that they

can't leave the house anymore.

And so that's how we help people,

is kind of encouraging
them to get back out

into the world even though
it feels uncomfortable

in the short term.

One thing that we know
is that people ironically

that do their best to avoid
anything to do with that memory,

or anything to do with that situation

are the people who are
most likely to get PTSD.

And so some people who survived the fires,

don't wanna think about it,

don't wanna talk about it,

don't wanna go back up to
Paradise, understandably,

but that actually might
make them more susceptible.

Now, anybody who goes
through a really serious

traumatic event is
gonna have some symptoms

from that even if they
don't have full PTSD.

On the good side, as you're
talking about, people

went through this as a
group and the upside of that

is that they can support
one another afterwards.

And one of the best predictors we have

for people being resilient
to developing PTSD,

is social support.

It's one of the strongest
predictors of not getting PTSD.

- [Ev Durán] Many victims of the Camp Fire

have found strength and
solace in each other

aided by the largely
unwavering social support

of neighboring communities.

- The surrounding community
support was really amazing.

I mean, just all the free
meals, free clothing,

so many donations that they literally

had to send donations back.

- If you go anywhere, if you
talk to anyone that's not here,

they know what Paradise is
and they have such empathy,

and they have such compassion.

People have given so much, so much,

I just can't even believe it.

- The people around here keep finding ways

to help each other out.

I'm just so proud of them
and their resourcefulness,

the way they put things aside
and they bring too much.

They were having to turn
stuff away until later need

and the need it isn't
just a one day, one week,

one month need as we see.

- We had a Thanksgiving
with probably 60 people here

and they all, and the community, local

and extended community
brought every bit of it.

So it's been really
nice to see that people

will come together when it counts.

- We had a couple of big truckloads

of stuff come up from Vacaville.

Everything, just about all
the clothes that I have,

all I had was what I had on.

And he's got more clothes than
he's ever had at one time.

- Seems that way.

- It just, is mind blowing
to me the level of support,

not only locally, but globally.

- [Ev Durán] As the story
of Paradise began to spread

far and wide, our little town
grew internationally famous.

And the generous spirit of
total strangers from around

the world became the silver
lining of this terrible tragedy.

The PHS baseball team was
invited to play a game

on the same field as the
San Francisco Giants.

The basketball teams were invited to watch

the Golden State Warriors up close.

And PHS football got an
experience they'll never forget,

while visiting the San Francisco 49ers.

These are but a few of
the examples of love

that was shared with Paradise.

- Rotary clubs all over the United States

are sending money, and
it's just very encouraging

and it makes you feel
really good about people.

- It restores your faith in humanity.

It's wonderful, the
support that we've gotten,

not just locally with
things like our Chamber,

pretty much taking in any
business that wants to join now,

not even charging them

and doing this Ridge Rising
campaign, that's fabulous,

to Chico providing us with offices

for three months I think.

To the ladies in Ireland
who heard me on the news,

saying I really was so sad
that I lost all my recipes,

and they sent me four cookbooks.

It's just all over the world.

- [Ev Durán] There's one more example

of the widespread generosity
that the Mayor speaks of

that I'd like to share with you.

He's a man named Bob Wilson.

Like most people prior to the Camp Fire,

Bob had never even heard of Paradise.

You remember him from earlier?

- I knew nothing about
Paradise, as a matter of fact,

I had to look it up on a map.

- [Ev Durán] When I visited
Bob at his beautiful home

in Southern California,

I discovered that he
is a prolific collector

of firefighter related
keepsakes and memorabilia.

Which seems appropriate
since he is now a hero

to countless victims of fire.

- I was reading the paper one morning

and there was an article.

This was a whole article about
what these high school kids

would be missing as a result of the fire

and not being able to go
back to Paradise High School.

For me, I got so much out of high school.

I really thought about
these kids and the fact that

they were missing this
particular episode in their life.

That's what prompted me
to wanna do something.

I've always contended
that good intentions,

unless acted upon are
just good intentions.

So I decided I would act on this

and I decided to write
a letter to the kids.

Then I thought, gee, I better
put some substance behind it.

And the more I thought about it, I said,

I know what I'll do,

I'll just write a check
for a thousand dollars

to each one, 980 kids.

- [Ev Durán] Yeah, you
didn't mishear that,

980 kids times a thousand.

He also wrote checks to each

of the 105 staff members at PHS.

That's almost 1.1 million
dollars given to people

in a town he had no prior connection to.

What'd I say? Hero.

- [Ev Durán] If you were
invited back up for once

Paradise High School reopens,

would that'd be a trip that
you would consider making?

- Well, as a matter of fact, I got a call

from the superintendent of schools.

She said, "we want you at the graduation."

And I had replied to her,

"look, even if you hadn't invited me,

I would have been at your graduation."

(fast upbeat music)

- [Ev Durán] As you can
see, with the help of

countless volunteers from the community,

the school district was able to make

the campus safe and secure enough

to host the Paradise
High School graduation.

The event drew a large crowd,

eager to celebrate the accomplishments

of these young people

and the continuing
accomplishments of the town.

- Absolutely, absolutely.

I got this, this is gotta
be your only picture

with a cop you got.

Hey, it's good seeing you,
glad you're doing well.

- The reality of what has happened to us,

is that we will grieve forever.

We will not get over the
loss of our community

but we will learn to live with it.

We will heal and we will rebuild ourselves

around the loss we have suffered.

(fast upbeat music continues)

- We will always carry
a piece of PHS with us,

a memory of where we came
from and what we overcame,

as we take off on our
next great adventures.

(crowd chanting)

(crowd cheering)

- This is your night.

You are the ones to be
commended for staying the course

despite the adversity that
overtook your community.

(crowd cheering)

- You are the first generation of

Paradise High School graduates,

to rise from the ashes of what life was

and take a bold step
forward into a new future.

- [Announcer] It is with
great honor that we present

the Paradise High School
graduating class of 2019.

You may now move your
tassels to the left side

of your cap (indistinct)

(large crowd cheering)

(crowd clapping)

- We did it bro.

- We did it.

- Ben?

- Ben.

- He wanted to meet you,
can we do a picture?

- Oh, I'd love to do a
picture yeah, absolutely.

- How was graduation?

It was the best.

It was absolutely the best.

- Don't look at Ev's.

- [Ev Durán] Where do you
think we are as a town?

Looking back at what happened

and sort of looking forward as well,

what have you learned?

What has the town learned?

- Well, I'm actually glad this happened

that I'm able to talk to you
today because last night,

you and I were both at the
high school graduation,

Paradise High School.

And that gave me great hope.

When I heard the words
from the student speakers,

it was powerful.

And it was the words that,

there's a bunch of people in this town

that are working every day
to bring back our community.

They're out there grinding every day,

and they're making a difference.

Because of that spirit I saw last night,

and because that spirit of
these people that I know

that are working with the
town, working with the county,

working with fellow
residents to make it happen,

I have great faith in the
resilience of the community.

We're going to rebuild,
hopefully in the long run,

we can make an even better
place than it was before.

But we have a long road, this
is a marathon, not a sprint,

but we have the people here
that can make that happen.

And I truly believe in the
spirit of this community.

Paradise Strong, it's been said a lot,

but the spirit of this community is,

a depth that I don't think
we'll reach the bottom of.

- Now we're at the point
where all of these things that

you never thought would
be impacted by this fire,

have been impacted.

And life is just so much more complicated.

It sounds cliche to say
that the world changed,

but the world changed. When
Paradise and Magalia and Concow

and all those other communities that were,

burned through, come back.

I know they'll come back eventually,

but it won't be the same,

there's just no way it can be the same.

But that's not to say that what we have

or what we will be able to do,

won't be great in its own right.

- People come here, they
don't really wanna leave.

Even having lost their home,

even not knowing how
certain the future might be,

they wanna be in Paradise.

They're gonna work that out
here, not somewhere else,

and I really admire that spirit
and that love of Paradise.

- I wanna see my family remain in Paradise

and I want to watch Paradise rebuild.

- Life is always in
flux, it always changes,

and what you do with that,
defines who you are as a person.

We've reinvented ourselves
down here in Chico,

until we can get back up into Paradise,

and it's gonna be a lot of fun.

- It'll be the things
that attracted us here

in the first place.

It still be, they'll be back.

The slower pace of life, the friendliness,

all the volunteerism in this community,

it's tons of people
getting involved in making

this community a better place,

and all those things will be remembered,

and it'll be a driving
force to bring people back.

They're going to want that again.

- We're pioneers, we're starting all over

and just like some of
the names you'd see down

at the museum that were
the first ones to come up.

That's us, it's our time.

It's why we need to engage,

we need to be involved and
love on your community,

and the people that are here.

- Paradise is a very
resilient and strong town,

and there's a lot that
don't wanna leave that hill.

And they're gonna do
whatever they have to,

to be able to rebuild
and live there again.

- And I always kind of
approach things from here

because I'm trying to envision,

how is it going to be
to walk into the house?

So the beginning, here's the
beginnings of the new house,

but here's the thing that just, I love.

In the whole backyard, we had a lawn, deck

and kind of a walkway
Jim and I had put in,

and at this end of it, we had
this small grove of bamboo.

Here's the bamboo.

It's like, it's been through
fire, construction, bulldozers,

I mean the lot's been scraped
clean, soil compacted,

and here's this dang bamboo coming up.

And I check on it every time,
'cause I just feel like,

Oh my gosh, it survived.

- [Ev Durán] Is there anything
else I didn't ask you?

Did I miss anything that you wanna say?

- No, I don't think so.

- [Ev Durán] Nobody ever says
yes, to that last question.

Nobody goes, yeah, yeah I got more stuff.

- No, I'm good.

- Nah, I don't know.

- I don't think so.

- I don't think so.

- No, I think you've covered it.

- [Ev Durán] Is there anything
else you guys wanna add,

that I didn't ask you?

Anything you want people to know?

- That I do believe that
there are people that,

and I know actually that there
are people who have struggled

way harder and that I
would like to help them.

And that we're just one of
many people who have survived.

Our story was about just
like the average of anybody.

Anybody could have been in our shoes.

Even though we were really
close and a lot of people

went through what we went through.

And, but there are some people

who went through harder things

and I think that they should
just, I wanna help them.

(fast upbeat rock music)

- [Ev Durán] But you know I didn't forget

about the football team.

(fast upbeat rock music continues)

- Hey, it's called nerves,

because you've been pissed off

for ten months!

Now you get to take it out.

Everybody heal tonight, play football.

Get down there, you have
a crowd that loves you

and you're gonna be inspired by it.

You're all gonna be healed right now,

by getting down there,
and kicking some butt.

Are you ready?

- Yes coach.

We win as brothers, we lose as brothers,

let's get it done,

Hey, brothers to the bone on three,

one, two, three.

- Brothers to the bone, wohoo.

(fast upbeat rock music continues)

- [Announcer] Lucas
Hartley, touchdown Paradise.