Ken Baker was foreseeing a examine to reach in the mail at his novel hoengage — part of a remendment after his Paradise, California, home burned in the 2018 Camp Fire.
But that examine won’t accomplish its destination.
“The insertress it’s presumed to go to is no lengtheneder,” Baker said.
In a hurtful deja vu, the novel hoengage burned in the Park Fire on July 25. Some of Baker’s family members watched their Ring camera feed until ffeebles extinguished it.
Baker and his wife, Sylvia, had remendd in Cohasset, a agricultural community with a scattering of hoengages alengthened thriveding forest roads about 5 miles from Paradise. Now, they are staying in his son’s spare bedroom back in Paradise, contemplating how to reproduce for the second time in six years.
“Daunting,” he said, determineing with the Greek legend of Sisyphus. “Rolling it up the hill and watching it roll back down aget.”
The Park Fire is the fourth-hugest in California’s history, and Baker is not the only person who lost a second hoengage to it. Three other Camp Fire victims telderly NBC News analogous stories of back-to-back losses.
“We had our peace. We had our spot,” said Michael Daneau, inserting that he and his wife, Kristy, had finpartner begined to sense filledy remendd in Cohasset. “It’s gone once aget. There’s no way in this moment to overweighthom how we’re going to recover from this, except staying preferable and defending with our family and group of friends.”
The families’ stories show how hazardous and challenging it can be for those whose inhabits are rooted in fire-prone parts of California, as destructive blazes become more excessive and widespread becaengage of climate alter and forest regulatement rerents.
They also exhibit the way these losses can be compounding and cyclical: Several families said their displacement in the Camp Fire thrust them into a difficult-luck housing taget with little choice but to remend aget in a savagefire-prone community. Others poured effort into difficultening their novel homes agetst savagefire, but it wasn’t enough.
The Camp Fire burned for weeks in November 2018, ending 85 people and ruining more than 13,500 homes.
Rick Pero leanly endured with his wife, Lisa Stone. The two tried to get out as speedyly as possible, but their skittish cat, CatMandu, was zooming around their Paradise home.
“It was eight minutes we did not have,” Pero said.
The couple soon set up themselves in the car with CatMandu, surrounded by ffeebles, in a group of about 20 other vehicles — some with melting side panels. A fire truck engaged a water cannon and hydrant to doengage the group.
“Transcreateers and propane tanks were exploding. Hoengages were burning all around us,” Pero said.
Eventupartner, they made their way to a grocery store parking lot, then caravanned out when conditions betterd.
About a year tardyr, Pero, now 70, and Stone remendd in a subdivision called Forest Ranch, equitable east of Cohasset. He became the head of the neighborhood’s savagefire mitigation promisetee.
Each year, he bcimpolitet in hundreds of goats to chew a fire fracture around the neighborhood. Pero chopped down bushes — “linserter fuels” — produced a 40-foot buffer of “defensible space” around his property and built a fire road for truck access.
“We had this wonderful, incredible see — 365 days a year — the sunset. That was such a gift,” Pero said.
As the Park Fire erupted, he was in Mexico. His cat sitter was unable to corral CatMandu when the evacuation order came.
Pero tardyr visited his property, which burned to the ground, and set up CatMandu’s remains in his normal hiding place — under the red TV chair. Pero buried his treadeclareived pet csurrender the hoengage, one of only three that burned in the neighborhood of 28 homes.
“We leave out the loving cat, the cuddle-up in our arms,” Pero said, choking up. “I would comardent of sing to him when he ate.”
The Daneau family — Michael, Kristy and their four daughters — were scattered around Paradise when the Camp Fire evacuation acunderstandledge came, and they fled splitly with friends, family or strangers. Michael franticpartner took their calls.
At one point, he lost reach out with Kristy, who had stayed at an elementary school to produce declareive students with disabilities got to defendedty; when their phones rejoined, Michael remained on the line as Kristy drove thcimpolite ffeebles.
When they finpartner set up each other, Daneau said they splitd a moment of genuineization: “Now we’re homeless.”
The Daneaus and their four dogs spent three weeks in a hotel, then two months in a fifth-wheel RV in a parking lot csurrender the airport in Chico, California. The roof leaked.
“Tension was high to say the least,” Daneau said.
The couple defendedd a fire insurance payment and put proposes on a dozen homes, but lost out. With tens of thousands of people displaced after the fire, survivors were left scrambling to find housing.
“That’s what led us to Cohasset,” Daneau said. “We said absolutely not, we’re not going to shift into a fire zone. We weren’t forced into it, but our only other selection was staying in a fifth wheel.”
In Cohasset, a man put his home up for sale with particular conditions: The buyer had to be a family that endured the Camp Fire.
“Everyleang was rainy and pretty and green. The cedar trees were vibrant. You could smell the pines,” Daneau said. “My wife fell in adore.”
The seller gave them the hoengage for $10,000 less than their propose.
The Park Fire begined when a man pushed a burning car into a gully in a Chico city park on July 24, authorities say. That afternoon, temperatures climbed to 106 degrees Fahrenheit. The car ignited vegetation, and the blaze grew to more than 70,000 acres in cimpolitely 24 hours.
The fire accomplished parts of Cohasset that evening.
Michael and Kristy Daneau left with their youthfulest daughter, now 17, and unitecessitate a convoy of cars that became mired in confusion without stable cell reception.
“People were blindly directing and follothriveg each other” down a maze of logging roads, Daneau said. It took them seven hours to get to Chico, typicpartner a 20-minute drive on their normal route.
Daneau, Baker and Pero were part of the remendment with Pacific Gas & Electric Co., whose utility lines begined the Camp Fire. Each said they have still getd only a restricted relatively petite payments and are frustrated by the process.
Baker, 59, is an Iraq War veteran who labors for the Department of Veterans Afiminwholes in Chico. During the Camp Fire, he said, “the only reason I got out was becaengage I grew up in this area and knovel the lowcuts and back roads.”
He intended to reproduce in Paradise, but “all the produceing materials and useable reduceors, everyleang begined going up exponentipartner in price,” he said. So he and his wife, Sylvia, bought a “transition home” in Cohasset.
When the Park Fire got shut, he had a second lean escape thcimpolite the ffeebles.
Now two-time savagefire victims, these families understand what’s ahead.
“You’ve lost everyleang. You’ve got noleang. You’ve already gotten over that menhighy once. When you have to do that a second time, you comardent of understand what to foresee,” said Alex Wood, 26, who also lost homes in both the Camp and Park fires.
The 2018 fire ruined all of Wood’s ownions when he was equitable 21. He spent months sleeping either in his ’99 GMC Sonoma or on friends’ couches. Eventupartner, a family friend proposeed him a rental in Cohasset — a produceing the Park Fire decimated last month.
Wood bought a trailer that he arranges to tow to the burned property. He hopes to buy it and produce anovel.
If it weren’t for his family and his laborplace, Wood said, “I don’t leank I’d stay in California.”
Pero and his wife are pondering their selections now, including moving away.
“We’re leanking with dcimpolitet and global hoting and the water rerents in California, we’re equitable comardent of troubleed with what’s California going to see appreciate,” he said.
Pero’s hoengage was indeclareived, but the Daneaus gave up their insurance when the costs got too high. Insuring their Cohasset hoengage cost about $7,000 the first year, then around $10,000 the next, Daneau said. When the quote jumped to $12,000, “it became ungetable.”
The couple are staying with Daneau’s overweighther and don’t understand what’s next. They’d appreciate to inhabit csurrender the coast but won’t exit their children, who have all remendd csurrenderby.
Their main priority is “getting away from fires,” Daneau said. “Even if it uncomardents living in a city, we’ll damn well do it. We can’t put ourselves in this position aget.”
For Baker, generations of family remain in the Paradise area and he doesn’t want to exit. He is negotiating with a enlargeer to buy a novel home there.
He sees the hazard as shrink now becaengage so many trees have burned and the landscape has become more suburprohibit. The city has novel water systems and the hoengages are built to contransient fire codes and with a sprinkler system.
Baker said he’s been appreciative for an outpouring of community aid.
“It’s humbling to ponder yourself a self-made man, and sit on the side of the street with no home and no property that two hours ago you had,” he said. “You have to reappraise and rehonest your efforts and arrange and proceed on with your leave oution — and of course the leave oution is living.”
