Do you see chimneys, surviving sentinels marking the edges of homes that were incinerated? Does it look like burnt cars, the glass blown out, melted smooth around the edges due to the heat of the flame? Would you guess that the bathtubs remained stationary, and washers, dryers and fridges stood in place, marking the rooms where mothers once folded clothes, and children ran about?

Wildfire is frighteningly random, and this, known officially as the “Camp Fire,” was too; your patio furniture and china set might survive, but your brick and mortar won’t. You don’t think an appliance means anything until it is all that is left, forcing painful visions of a family’s home, once filled with laughter, and now vanished in mother nature’s (or an electric company’s) quick day of work. Eighty-five lives lost.

“Boys, this is paradise,” William Leonard, a lumber mill man, is said to have uttered in 1857 when he saw the ponderosa pines in this expansive and breathtaking Northern California vista. As you look at Paradise, California, and the mountain towns around it now, six months after the disaster, you can still conjure up the hopeful pioneers venturing west for gold, the spark plug for the 1849 Gold Rush married into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Now “Golden Nugget Days” becomes a community attempt to salvage some normalcy.

What is community, after all? It turns out that tangible loss can actually reinforce the invisible bonds of neighborhood.

“After you have experienced driving through a town with flames roaring through both sides of the road, you really start to question: ‘Are we really going to lose everything? Will Paradise be gone?'” says resident Kimyata Omelia, whose home burned.

“Well, we didn’t lose all of Paradise. The largest church reopened and there were 700 people there one morning. Having gone through such a traumatic event together and all the things you need to do to rebuild together, it’s something special.”

It was a tragedy, though, that no one wanted to be a part of. Her home was on a family property she’d lived on for 48 years. “I had a house and a garage and a hot tub and a stand-up tanning machine,” says Omelia. “After the fire, I was lucky if I got a hot shower or ate a warm meal. I made the mistake of not having insurance. I couldn’t afford the monthly payments and, after not making a claim for 11 years, I let my policy lapse.”

It seems as though it should be a ghost town like your grandmother’s old westerns around here, and, yet, people still wander into the Hilltop Cafe and cars hum along roads whose names are only known by the locals because the road signs melted in the heat of November 8.

Dog walkers stop to chat with a neighbor down calamitous landscapes, and businesses proudly throw up “we’re open” signs even though there aren’t many customers. People are marooned on blocks surrounded by molten ruin, living on islands of ash and twisted tangibles in homes the fire somehow skipped. Yet they are closer to neighbors than ever before in other ways, lunching with them at Paradise Alliance Church (which now draws multiple denominations and serves as a community hub) and banding together to reconstruct a new version of paradise from the ash.

It’s a disaster of such magnitude that, as with September 11, it’s known to locals by its date: November 8. During 2018, CalFire says, there were more than 7,571 wildfires that burned over 1.8 million California acres. This was the most destructive.

“November 8 presented me with unknowns I was not prepared to face. That day was a world changer and a game changer,” says Matt Plotkin, executive director of the area’s Long Term Recovery Group, which meets in nearby Chico.

However, he commended the group, which involves everyone from religious organizations to non-profits, on their hope, their sense of community, and their drive. Jim Davis, a community recovery supervisor with FEMA, added to this sentiment. He’s worked on many national disasters, including Katrina.

“I leave more hopeful. Not just the energy, but this is an absolutely remarkable community. This is one of the most remarkable trajectories,” Davis told the group. He adds: “You’re going to get tired, you’re going to get worn down. So take care of yourselves.”

There’s so much left to do. “We have absolutely zero FEMA trailers in the city of Chico right now,” says Tami Ritter, Butte County Supervisor. “As far as this being an emergency response, it’s the slowest emergency response I’ve ever seen.” However, Sheriff Kory Honea says: “FEMA has been incredibly helpful in supporting our citizens with rebuilding. Temporary housing and shelters were established early on that allowed our residents the chance to reset.”

It hasn’t been easy. “Lots of us have just struggled to figure our next move. Whether that’s in a house, or in a trailer. We were letting firefighters sleep at the station,” he acknowledges.

“I have served this community since 2000. Not just as Sheriff but in a variety of different law enforcement positions. If you look at the numbers; folks that were displaced, unaccounted for throughout the incident and deaths, this by far was the most devastating and destructive fire that this community has seen. Significant portions of our community are gone. Singed by the fire.”

Omelia sees slow improvement. “It’s getting better, but it’s been very hard. I’m a 50-year-old who was wrapping a blue tarp over my brother’s hunting trailer just to insulate myself from the cold air that takes over Paradise at night. I’ve really tried to just shuffle between the best option I could get on any given day.”

FEMA says disaster efforts start locally and then expand outward. “The debris and the housing mission have been slow, but it’s very unfortunate because…the rain, the wet, snowy weather (at higher elevations) has really impacted the recovery efforts,” said Ken Higginbotham, external affairs officer for FEMA.

Near the famous Paradise ridge sits Magalia, a town built into the forest now made up of white RVs, plaguing the lots that once gave way to million-dollar views and, even further, Concow, an unincorporated community off Highway 70 where almost all residences burned. The people in villages like Concow and Magalia feel overlooked. Altogether, the devastation spans 240 square miles. The blaze sparked 2,000 feet up winding country roads near the Plume National Forest. Some in the national media boiled it all down to a few blocks and a single dot within a larger burn map: Paradise.

Can you blame them, though? A town called Paradise, burning.

“It’s forever affected everybody,” says Kim Dady, who waitressed in a Paradise restaurant that burned to the ground. “I’ve lost a lot of friends. A lot. It’s sad.” Yet, she and her husband are staying, in an RV turned into a home next to a melted storage shed that overlooks a grand valley near Concow. They’re building a wider defensive fire line around it. She’s started waitressing again in a restaurant in nearby Chico and some of her old regulars, but not all of them, have followed her there.

Concow and the other mountain villages are throwback hamlets embedded within the trees where hardy mountain people living off the grid still barter for goods and gather at a white-washed, one-room schoolhouse for a donated lunch brought by men from Sacramento affectionately called “The Russians” by locals. No, it’s not California suburbia; these are towns built to sustain the nature these individualistic people sought to live amongst–the tall, slim and breathtakingly beautiful oak, pine and ponderosa trees. A half million trees burned, with 91,000 fallen.

“The trees don’t realize they’re dead,” says David Stookey, who lost his home in Concow. “The sap in them boils and hardens, and water can’t travel through the tree anymore, so the tree thinks it’s alive and doesn’t fall until it essentially dehydrates.”

Remaining residents, refugees in already isolated towns, come to the metal shed at the Yankee Hill hardware store in the middle of seemingly nowhere to pick through donated clothes and shampoo samples, assisted by a man who lived in his car for weeks. With two 100-pound dogs. He fell through the cracks for governmental help because he wasn’t a homeowner and was already living on a relative’s property. He stayed for a time at the Chico fairgrounds with other Camp Fire survivors (animals stayed at the airport.) Now he’s living in a donated RV. Someone’s scattered joking handwritten Joe Dirt “honary sheriff” signs around outside.

“The news coverage kind of helped Paradise a lot,” says Rob Barber, a Concow resident. “Paradise was always on the news…No, it started here. It came over our mountains and ripped right through this place.”

Six months after the alleged spark of a PG&E electrical misfire, the Earth has begun to recover as if it is spring after a frigid winter, with budding branches, perennials sprouting, and wildflowers in areas they never were before. It looks like a storybook, even now; as a stranger to the land, it is hard to imagine what is missing, but to those who have spent their lives amongst the nature, the damage is hard to stomach, many avoiding their favorite hiking trails, unable to comprehend the vast devastation.

The Earth is beginning to forgive the damage, as it does, with the endless cycle of renewal and rebirth; the people who stuck it out remain hopeful, but many have left for good. While the land was loved, many people haven’t returned, and looters have taken kindly to this mindset, taking the last of survivors’ things, taking what little the fire has left behind. Locals say it’s too hard to get building permits; intra-governmental conflicts erupted over whether they can stay on torched plots. Adjacent Chico, which didn’t burn, has been flooded with new residents, driving up already high housing prices. “A large population of that community is embedded in the City of Chico…a city within a city,” says Chico’s Vice Mayor Alex Brown.

Humanity is put on trial in the face of great tragedy. Many people look for someone to blame, unearthing the character of all affected; some rise to be town leaders, others slink away, some take what remains, and some are just doing their best to make it through the day. It’s also a land of marijuana “grows,” open joint smoking, and motorcycle clubs. People came up here in the first place because they want nature. And freedom.

Humans are resilient, though, just like nature. Children are being educated in makeshift schools in an office complex and a hardware store or online, but the athletic teams still play. Jerry Cleek, the coach of the Paradise High School basketball team, described how, four days after the wildfire occurred, the team came together for its first practice. As he walked onto the court, he noticed the team members were high fiving one another, smiling broadly, and, most importantly, they were giving one another hugs.

The business community is equally resilient.

“With the Camp Fire, there’s just so much support; people wanting to help and support my business,” says Jamie Kalanquin, who runs a local scarf business called Thistle & Stitch. “When I was just ready to give up and be like, ‘Well, there goes everything I worked for,’ it was just the opposite.”

Drive with the windows down, and you can smell the fresh trees, the clean air. Nature bigger than man. From Chico, an artsy college town peppered with galleries and boutique shops, begin winding your way up and up and up the mountain side, through the hills and valleys toward Plumas National Forest, through Butte Valley and toward the Concow Reservoir near the Jarbo Gap. This is where it started: Pulga Road at Camp Creek Road near Jarbo Gap. The fire’s origin lies at the end of a narrow dirt passageway clinging to the side of the mountain with signs that blare “proceed at your risk” and “no pullouts.” CalFire now says the wildfire was caused by electrical transmission lines owned and operated by Pacific Gas and Electricity (PG&E). Locals talk about the “perfect storm.” High winds helped whip the fire into a frenzy they’d never seen before.

“Who knew that the trees, the thing we love most about Paradise, would become our biggest threat,” said Lauren Gill, a Long-Term Recovery Group Board Member.

Battalion Chief Curtis Lawrie was sent to Pulga that day. He was the first incident commander at the site and right away he texted his wife, saying how this fire was not like any other he has seen and that she and their children should grab the animals and get out as this danger was real. Lawrie is concerned about the health effects of breathing toxic smoke for about 36 hours without a break.

“The tinder dry vegetation and Red Flag conditions consisting of strong winds, low humidity and warm temperatures promoted this fire and caused extreme rates of spread, rapidly burning into Pulga to the east and west into Concow, Paradise, Magalia and the outskirts of east Chico,” CalFire wrote in a May 15, 2019 statement. There was also a second ignition site.

The firefighters at the Paradise Fire Station, several military men and others generational firefighters, described how bad it got. Horses and dogs freely roamed the streets, the firefighters carried cats out of houses in bags, and you can tell by their pained faces that it’s better not to ask about the people in the assisted living center where they responded to calls for help. Paradise was an aging community. Everyone pitched in, even the elderly woman in a bathrobe who helped direct traffic. People jumped out of burning cars and into rivers, and you really knew it was bad when the fire station burned. It wasn’t about putting out the fire at first, they said. It was a rescue mission. It was about saving people. And animals. And, finally, it was about trying to save things, especially the town hall, the school (which burned anyway), and other landmarks. It turned black as night outside as the fire burned. And burned.

“When you’re grabbing things to take with you, the main thought is ‘What can’t be replaced?’” says Paradise bicycle shop owner Rich Coglin. “I got up, went outside and the porch lights are on, because it’s so dark…midnight at eight a.m.”

Tracy Mohr, who works in Animal Services for the city of Chico, concurs: “The smoke was hanging over the city – and it seemed like nighttime, because the sky was so dark.”

Paradise Fire Capt. Phil Rose, whose dad was a Paradise firefighter before him, thinks wildfires are necessary for nature’s rejuvenation. They’ve existed throughout time, he says, but the destruction is greater because human beings have encroached more into the wild. The next challenge: Controlling the vegetation that is beginning to sprout up, nature replenishing itself with a fury.

“We’re just trying to do what we can to help everyone out,” says Rose. “I’ve been around this community since I was a kid. It’s hard to see the people you love go through this.”

Paradoxically, this place of natural disaster remains a spot of enormous natural beauty. Your ears may begin to pop at the altitude. The wind will whip through your hair, making you want to sing John Denver songs, and, up Skyway Road, your jaw will drop at the expansive view of rolling hills, of beautiful lookout points with waterfalls, of the place you may have imagined your whole life but didn’t know existed.

Be warned, though, that this place is not what it was. Dozens of white crosses lining the road into Paradise will remind you of this. Eighty-five lost. Rose Farrell–99-years-old. Beverly Powers–64-years-old, her emergency assistance necklace now being worn by this wooden cross on the side of Skyway Road. Victoria Taft–scrawled in a child’s penmanship across the white wood, “I love u mom.” Dorthy Mack, Teresa Ammons, Dennis Hanko, Sheila Santos, Gary Hunter, Colleen Riggs, Rafaela Andrade, Jennifer Hayes, Julian Binstock, Chris Salazar, Phyllis Salazar, Evva Holt. On and on and on, names of people, memorials of those whose lives were reclaimed by nature, by the fire that ripped through Butte County, California on November 8, 2018, leaving 153,336 acres charred, blazing for 17 days battled by 1,065 fire personnel, and forever altering the lives of thousands of Californians.

The Camp Fire stands atop CalFire’s list of the “top 20 most destructive California wildfires.” The causes of others? Human-related, power lines, electrical. A couple other fires burned more acreage but none is close when it comes to human deaths and structural damage.

Bill Stewart, co-director of The Center for Forestry at UW-Berkeley, mentioned how Paradise was on the list of towns where the worst-case scenario could become a real possibility as it is surrounded by canyons and thick forests, which is one of the many reasons that Paradise is unique. Combine that with wind, and the worst-case scenario becomes reality.

However, the deadliest wildfire in U.S. history is not the Camp Fire but one in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, where at least 1,200 people lost their lives back in 1871. The cause, according to the National Weather Service, sounds somehow similar: Human intervention. Railroad workers starting a brush fire. Today, in what could be a lesson for Paradise, Peshtigo is a healthy paper mill town of 3,000.

The recovery of Paradise, especially, has been buffeted by national support and donation.

Two women from elsewhere who work for non-profit organizations are still living in an RV parked outside a warehouse in Paradise, tracking, trapping, and rescuing “fire cats” that are disbursed and still hiding throughout the area, six months out, suffering from PTSD and wounds. Many of the fire cats were pets, and their families are still looking for them. There were hundreds of such cats, and the women are still pulling them out of parched forests. Reunification between pet and owner is a way to give people who have lost almost everything tangible something back.

“…It was so big, that it was beyond anybody’s scope…ever. This was beyond Katrina,” says Joy Smith, who is the executive director at FieldHaven Feline Center, of the animal rescues following the Camp Fire.

The Paradise Inn sign remains. The neon sign visibly shouts “no vacancies,” but it’s not lit. It stands lonely on the side of the road because there is no Inn. In and out of the towns, large work trucks dominate the road, carrying everything burnt that once made up a town. A man shimmies up a burnt tree to lop off its top. The Safeway grocery store is a lunar-like landscape of shopping cart skeletons and melted ATM machines.

“Honestly, it was truly remarkable,” says resident Jerry McLean of the help that poured in. He and his wife lost everything but the clothes on their backs.

“People were driving in from Sacramento and San Francisco with food, water, clothing, just about anything that you could think of. We relied heavily upon donated toiletries early on because we literally had nothing. Many of the shelters were makeshift, obviously which caused problems when thinking of your basic living needs. Like a toilet, sink, or shower. “

At Skyway Road and Black Olive, stands the remnants of a convenience store, maybe a liquor store, though it is hard to tell. Warped metal shelves, broken glass, survived the flames. Shelves full of now emptied bottles, labels and liquor have evaporated into the Earth at the hands of the firestorm. In one plot of land, a china cabinet still stands amidst the debris. A family’s china, possibly a once cherished heirloom, remained practically intact given the circumstances.

Here and there, though, an artist’s murals are popping up like wildflowers on fire-tinged walls.

The mural wasn’t a phenomenon right away. That first mural of a young woman’s face painted in black-and-white. It’s on the only remnants of the home of an old friend: their chimney. It was through Facebook that Shane Grammer’s mural became an international sensation. It was just a piece of art he did on his friend’s burned-out home, but it turned into something much larger than he could ever imagine.

“People were so devastated in that area that it was like it was some of the first beauty they’ve seen,” says Grammer, an artist from Los Angeles who grew up in Chico.

Open your eyes. This is what paradise looks like. Locals think it will take a good 10 years to see a fuller recovery. That’s a childhood to some. It’s the rest of a lifetime to others.

How does one reconstruct Paradise? Mayor Jody Jones says she thinks Paradise will initially be smaller. “Everything will be brand new, which will be attractive and could bring more people to the community.”

Steve Bolin, executive pastor at one of the few unscathed churches, agrees. He thinks the planning and restructuring will work.

“I believe it’s going to be a great community, once we’re done.”

This story was written by University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee journalism student Madison Sepanik with reporting from Sepanik, Sal Sendik, Andrew Boldt, Dimitris Panagiotopoulos, Elizabeth Sloan, and Hailey McLaughlin.

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“People were so devastated in that area that it was like it was some of the first beauty they’ve seen,” said Grammer, an artist from Los Angeles, but who grew up in Chico.

Looking was forward, Grammer wasn’t even aware that he would make multiple trips up to Paradise to create more than 10 murals in the community; memorials and pieces of hope for a community that didn’t have much to look forward to. A beacon of beauty in the burnout community that everyone was once able to call home.

Grammer grew up near the Paradise area, living in the neighboring, bigger community of Chico. The area was a place where he called home until he moved to Los Angeles for his career as an artist. But his home never left his thoughts and feelings, even when he saw what was happening to his friends and family during the Camp Fire.

It was through social media that he saw family and friends wearing masks, posting about their struggles and what was happening to them during the fires.  After he made the eight-hour drive for the first time, he saw what was left of a community he once knew so well.

“There are sections of people who just didn’t have anything anymore.”

It was the first time Grammer had seen what had happened; what the fire had done to this world he knew. But over time, he would continue to come back to Paradise and to the area and hear the countless stories of what happened to those in the area.

Before his murals in Paradise, Grammer was creating murals around the globe, bringing attention to different, yet difficult topics. His first mural, when he was only 19, was for an orphanage in Mexico. But this wasn’t the end. He used his love of street art to raise awareness about important topics, especially sex trafficking.

But his murals had a different impact; a different appreciation to them before Paradise.

“For a lot of the heavy issues I do artwork for, a lot of people don’t care. Only the people who care about that issues are the ones who care.”

But Paradise was different.

“The art did move people and encouraged people. It gave them beauty.”

That first piece was what really allowed Grammer to gain the attention that launched him into a new realm of stardom. At first, he just shared his work to his Facebook page, just as he had done with so many other pieces that he had created throughout time.

It was only when his friend, the one he created the mural for, shared it to a Facebook page for survivors, that it really gained traction. People saw the art, the beauty of this one single painting.

This sparked a storm on social media. People were sharing the post. People were asking for their own murals to be painted. International media reached out to Grammer, asking for interviews and wondering about the piece he created.

As of now, Grammer has created over 15 murals in Paradise for the community. He has created memorials. He has created pieces for families who lost almost everything. Pieces for families who lost families. Pieces of hope. Pieces of strength.

Grammer said that much of the area, including his hometown of Chico, has always been a creative space for those who continue to make art, but he hopes that his work inspires others to turn to the arts, and maybe find a sense of healing through it.

“I hope this mural project encourages other creators to create and move people,” said Grammer.

Grammer prides himself on being a Christian, but overall, he seems to be proud to give something back to his community through the art form that he loves. Through his art, he’s been able to give back to his old community and to continue.

Because of his work and the attention it received, multiple fundraisers have been set up to raise money for different art programs in the area, including a program to help young people use art to heal from the disaster.

But Grammer never did this for the fame. He did this all to help a community that he still cares about, and to help a healing process in any way he can.

“I’ve done my job as a human.”

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Joy Smith, who is the executive director at FieldHaven Feline Center, and Jennifer Petrushka, who oversees Pet Rescue and Reunification, overtook the establishment with a single-minded passion of cats, knowing themselves how much domestic felines can captain, positively, one’s psyche.

Lucidity was no more for many pet owners after Nov. 8, as their house cats were now on the prowl and renamed “fire cats,” masquerading behind weathered fur coats, which may have been singed, and enraged locomotion.

At a discounted rate, compared to the opening weeks following the fire, cats are coming in being micro-chipped, vaccinated and spayed or neutered, nearly six months after the disaster.

Hundreds of pets were on the lam following the Camp Fire, which displaced 35,000 people.

The outset of this pet restoration typically begins with an owner reporting a missing cat. Once there is reason to believe that a cat, or a group of cats, has gone astray, Jen and company put feeding stations out in the wilderness, with game cameras overhead, so that the feline will be more susceptible to entrapment — this is all, in their hopes, en route to the facility. Trappers, who are strict volunteers, are then deployed to hover over the feeding stations and decide whether to hand-trap or drop-trap.

Though the procedure seems guerrilla, what the two women, and their respective organizations, have done since the Camp Fire is metaphorically ink a thick tale of derring-do.

“The cat comes in, and the first thing we do is scan for a microchip,” said Smith, who then takes many pictures, all to potentially suss out distinct features, such as white on the belly or markings on the whiskers. “Of course, when you have a plain black cat, it makes it really challenging, but there are things, like Jen taught me: we run our hand down the tail — and if you feel a bump, ok, that’s a distinguishing feature.”

All this subtlety is then posted only on Facebook, where the deduction of one-time owners, whom may have already submitted pictures to Smith or Petrushka’s organization, takes full rein.

There are a lot of false alarms involved in this kitten espionage, however.

“Chances are that black and white cat — we might be looking for ‘Prancer,’ but we’re probably going to get 20 or 30 of them,” said Smith, who only had experience in the “trap, neuter, return” philosophy, upon meeting Petrushka.

A proactive way to nearly ensure reestablishing relations would involve the microchipping of the animal. Because that hasn’t been the case, an abundance of cats has arisen, so much so that there are two other cat shelters in the area: Fur, which has 20 to 30 cats, and Fire Cat Farm, which sprang up in response to the Camp Fire and holds a large social media following.

“But it was so big, that it was beyond anybody’s scope…ever — this was beyond Katrina,” said Smith, who knew people from Alley Cat Allies who worked during the deadly hurricane. “There was just a lot of confusion.”

Petrushka began handling fire cats after the Tubbs Fire, which occurred four hours southwest of Paradise in 2017 and had half the impact of the Camp Fire. Now, caged kittens have built a decent rapport with her.

Reestablishments between cats and humans — and subsequent tears dropping by the gallon — have occurred because of a noticeable kink in the tail. Conversely, once-upright spines have slouched once the two women turn an owner, whose description doesn’t line-up, away.

Sometimes, it’s hard to tell, for the person…and the cat.

Cat post-traumatic-stress disorder exists and, according to Smith, can manifest in self-inflicted starvation and severe isolation. With toys at their disposal at the facility and usual collective choruses of mews ringing out at night, PTSD cats can usually be identified by their lack of participation by Smith and Petrushka. Enlarged hearts due to smoke inhalation can also alter a cat’s presentation.

If a cat is too far gone, as determined by one of the few veterinarians, they can be placed in rehabilitation centers.

Smith lives near the facility, so, it’s not uncommon for her to go home once a week. Petrushka, meanwhile, hasn’t been home for two months. In both cases, their families understand.

“They aren’t just like humans, but there are always going to be triggers,” said Petrushka, using an example of an active fireplace serving as something that could exhume the stresses from the Camp Fire.

On the morning of Nov. 8, Smith was giving a presentation on behalf of FieldHaven in Butte County, one in which she mentioned the sheltering of animals of evacuees. By midnight, she was living her previously spoken words, setting up shelters.

“People would go to the Red Cross Shelter,” said Smith, “and their animals would come to us.”

A thick, orangish fog of flames stood dormant for many hours. Meanwhile, Smith was being told that she would be receiving 600 cats and a bigger building, only to receive far less of what was presented.

Though Smith and Petrushka didn’t pursue dogs after the fire, canines are typically seen as less survivalist than cats, who are more independent and cunning. The period for recovering dogs ended far before cats, because most dogs either went with their owners or perished, or walked willingly up to strangers to be rescued.

A poor game of telephone — or simple bureaucratic strife, according to Smith, who was somewhat sympathetic toward city officials — was played between the Butte County Office of Emergency Services: the Incident Command Center and the Operation Center, in Oroville, Butte County Animal Control and the North Valley Animal Disaster Group, who helmed the animal response unit.

Bags of cat food have been donated via drives, while toys have been made out of Dollar Store trinkets, with many coming via online donation, too. The women estimate that over 800 cats have been rescued by FieldHaven Feline Center and Pet Rescue and Reunification alone, even though the two teamed-up just in early February.

With this temporary hump being over, and fewer people visiting, Smith and Petrushka, with the support of FieldHaven Feline Center and Alley Cat Allies, are not resting on their laurels, as not every citizen has gotten back their cat(s). But, they believe, like many others in Paradise, people in the community can rebound as fervently as ever.

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Chris was busy working hard on their property, situated on a tall hill overlooking a ravine in Concow, California. Concow is an unincorporated community situated in the Sierra Nevada foothills in Butte County. The community is approximately a 25 mile drive from Paradise, California, where the Camp Fire burned for 17 days during November 2018. 

Kim and Chris grew up in the lakeside town of Port Washington, Wisconsin. But, after taking two trips to visit friends, they fell in love with the beauty of Northern California and the cost of living. They landed in Concow about four years ago, where they live with their three dogs and two goats. 

“It’s so dope,” Kim exclaimed. “Even burnt there’s no way I could move away.” 

She slid in to a black, stick-shift Subaru hatchback, and traversed down the steep landscape of Wind Ridge Drive to get burgers from the only local restaurant, Scooter’s Cafe, located on California State Route 70 and Deadwood Road. Ironically, thousands of blackened trees lined the way down Concow Road, the only way in and out of town. 

The Camp Fire was reported at 6:33 a.m. on November 8, 2018. That morning, Kim looked out a window and could see the blaze burning toward their home. Suddenly, the wind shifted. While Kim and Chris’ trailer and partially constructed tiny home were spared, their storage container went up in flames. Kim thought their belongings would be safe, but a wood floor in the storage container led to the destruction of their most prized possessions. She stays optimistic, as material things can be replaced but people cannot. 

Kim used to work at Kalico Kitchen of Paradise, which was taken off the map by the Camp Fire. According to the restaurant Facebook page, the small town diner was a favorite amongst locals, earning a 4.5 out of 5 stars. After the fire, a lot of her customers moved away. 

“It’s forever affected everybody,” Kim said. “I’ve lost a lot of friends. A lot. It’s sad.”

Through it all, some members of the community have stepped up to help and provide for others. Kim stood outside the Pines Yankee Hill Hardware Store, which has become a hub for Concow residents. She greeted a man named Mike in the parking lot, who climbed into a white Ford F150 adorned with a sticker saying, “Suck it Up.” 

Next to the main store sits a brand new building, a distribution center, which was swiftly built after the fire. A pair, Nicole Newman and David Desmond, work together to support the people of Concow by providing food, water, clothes, toys, and much more. They see about 50 to 60 people each day. It is a situation in which the agents for recovery are also in recovery themselves. Nicole and the rest of her family are now living down the road in a trailer behind Canyon Lanes Market. 

While many have noticed a sort of bonding through the obliteration of their community, many more have found the situation difficult to cope with. Seven people in Concow perished in the Camp Fire. Families have moved away, and couples have grown apart. 

“Chris and I go see a therapist and she said ‘you know when things like this happen it either brings you together or breaks you up’ and I know a lot of people that have split up. Like a lot. It affects your relationships with people,” Kim explained. 

The nation’s attention and most news coverage blatantly focused on the town of Paradise after the fire, rightfully so, as the name lends itself to enticing headlines. But the people of Concow feel that their struggle has been overlooked, ignored even. 

As Kim drove through the devastation, which is still being cleaned up, she pointed out dozens of white trailers sprinkled in the trees. Earlier this year, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) decided that all fire debris must be removed before residents can re-occupy their land, and if the ordinance is violated, the area could lose $1.7 billion in relief funding. Concow residents test the boundary, though, because no one is looking at them. 

“It’s hard to hear it called the Paradise Fire,” Kim said. “Because it started in my backyard.” 

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For Camp Fire survivors, the world of art is not lost to them. The area around Paradise and Chico is very creative, with artists living directly in Chico, but with many others living up on the Ridge in the woods.

Musicians, artists, writers, and other creators were all impacted when the Camp Fire came through their towns. Besides worrying about losing homes, pets, belongings, and sometimes, loved ones, a lot of the artists in the area lost thousands of their pieces and their supplies.

“I personally lost all my art work in the fire, years and years of art work, some stored in boxes and some framed on my walls,” said Renee Goularte.

Goularte lived on the Ridge, in a small town just outside of Paradise, called Magalia. After the fire, she only had a few photographs remaining of her work; just shells of what she used to have.

The Camp Fire is a story of loss; a narrative that continues to repeat itself even months after the fire. For a number of creators in the area, the loss has restricted their ability to create.

Besides so many losing their pieces in the fire, they lost their spaces to create, their supplies, and in some cases, their muses.

In the area, a number of groups are trying to help out the artists of the area. Facebook groups have been created to help different artists in the area share their stories about what the lost. On the page, there are calls for supplies, but also calls for excess supplies that are up for donation.

The Paradise Art Center is trying to do what it can to support artists in the area. Donations are accepted in an attempt to help the artists of the area that lost everything. Different fundraisers have been established to help a number of areas of the arts.

In March, Ed Asner came up to Theatre on the Ridge, a production theater in Paradise that survived the fire, to help raise money for the community and the theater itself.

Throughout the communities that were affected by the Camp Fire there’s that continual story of lost, but there are stories of coming together and working to recreate what the fire took from them.

And what better way to do this through art?

The fire was extremely traumatic for so many, including a lot of the young people of the area. This is why Erin Haley started a program so young people could express themselves through drumming.

Haley, who has a private practice in music therapy, received a grant after the fire where she was able use her knowledge about music therapy to a number of young people in the area. With groups from elementary school children to teenagers, they’re able to come together and release a lot of their anger and frustration, but while doing this, create something.

“It’s so nice that it’s highly valued,” said Haley about music and the arts in the area since the fire.

In the long-term recovery process for Paradise and the surrounding areas, there’s a focus on the arts.

Events are planned for the future to revolve directly around the arts. Song writing events, fundraisers to have art be a core part of the healing process for the young people of the community, and just the overall  

Art, while painful to others, can be healing for some. Take for instance, the artists at the 1078 Gallery. At the end of April, the gallery sponsored a showcase called “Remembered: Art Honoring Loss from the Camp Fire.”

The small space could have been overlooked by anyone driving by, but once inside the space, the art for the exhibition was able to tell stories that sometimes words weren’t able to.

When Rebecca Wallace and Rebecca Shelly came up with the idea that would eventually turn into the exhibition, they were looking for a way to help the Camp Fire survivors in the way that they knew: through their art.

They created a Facebook group where those impacted by the fire could share their stories about what they lost in the fire. Over 40 artists from around California and the world agreed to take part and create pieces for not only the gallery, but ultimately the survivors themselves.

Some artists themselves were impacted. Take Jessica Vega. During the Camp Fire, she lost her own home and much of her family had to move in together after the fire.  

“We’ve been through worse,” said Vega. “It really puts perspective everything.”

For the showcase, she created a piece out of wood to honor an item her neighbor had lost in the fire.

Vega also was part of the Butte College class that helped curate the exhibition. In the hours leading up to its opening, her, along with a few of her classmates, were working to make sure that every story and every name card was perfect.

One of the pieces at the gallery was a recreation of a lost portrait from the fire. The drawing showed a young man in a military uniform, smiling as he looked off to the side. While the photo was lost forever, the drawing came from that loss.

One of the most notable stories from the Camp Fire was a story about art. Shane Grammar, an artist who was from Chico, but later moved to Los Angeles, started creating pieces of street art on the ruins of homes and other buildings in Paradise.

The area is extremely creative. Just driving through Chico, there are pieces of work everywhere. Huge murals, sculptures, street art. It all gives off this creative energy, a sense that the entire area is so creative and how important art is.

Now six months after the fire, the art is starting to come back. Bands that were affected from the fire are playing again in Chico. Spaces are being found for those who want to create.

What was lost from the Camp Fire can never really be replaced.

But maybe it could fuel the creative spark to create from it.

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“Loss of life and even property in the great fire occurring the same night in Chicago did not match the death toll and destruction visited upon northeastern Wisconsin during the same dreadful hours. The town of Peshtigo was centered around a woodenware factory, the largest in the country. Every building in the community was lost. The tornado of fire claimed at least 800 lives in this area. Many of the victims lie here. The memory of 350 unidentified men, women and children is preserved in a nearby mass grave.”

As stated on the plaque, wood products manufacturing in the area was the largest in the world. Notoriously flammable sawdust blanketed the town. With very casual use of fire during the 19th century, fires were very common. Sometimes the smoke was so bad that they had to close school, and sometimes it was so dark that one couldn’t see a friend from a block away. 

In the fall of 1871, the citizens of Peshtigo had come to the end of a very long, dry summer. The driest in recent memory. On the evening of October 8, people had just finished fighting a fire downtown, where piles of sawdust had gone up in flames. Folks in the area were always worried about fires; they buried prized possessions to protect them in anticipation of a fire. Night came and the wind picked up. People reportedly heard the sound of a “freight train” and saw a red glow coming their way. The fire had already destroyed the west side of town.

“People ran into the river, bobbing up and down, because there was no way to fight it,” said Scott Knickelbine, author of The Great Peshtigo Fire: Stories and Science from America’s Deadliest Firestorm. “They couldn’t have their head out of the water for more than a minute before their heads started to burn.”

The few survivors of the Peshtigo Fire suffered from ailments like scorched lungs, pneumonia, among other things. It was a while before news was able to reach anyone, as the Great Chicago Fire happened on the same night. Ironically, the buildings that were burning in Chicago that night were made of wood from Peshtigo.

Initially, no one believed the stories. They simply refused to believe that “people burst into flames” and that there were “fire tornadoes” or that “metal burned in mid-air.” Later, fact finders found all claims to be true. The Peshtigo Fire has been mostly forgotten because almost no one survived, while the Chicago Fire is notorious because people lived to tell about it. 

“It requires an eye witness to do it and even then one never can give an accurate account of what happened on that terrible night of the eight of October 1871,” Rev. Kurt R. F. Geyer wrote in the Peshtigo Times on October 6, 1921. 

In Peshtigo, things changed so dramatically that the people who did not die decided to leave town. Business in the area collapsed, which led to a sharp decrease in economic vibrancy, to the point that it would have been irrelevant to rebuild the factories. It took a very long time for Peshtigo to come back.

“The occurrences of that dreadful night have never been accorded their proper place in the history of American disasters, primarily because Chicago’s ordeal was by its very nature more spectacular, more universally publicized, and more often revived in print,” according to Rev. Peter Pernin in a reproduced excerpt from the Wisconsin Magazine of History in 1971.  

The Peshtigo Fire Museum and memorial cemetery is located on the site of the Catholic church that Father Pernin lost in the fire. The building is the first church rebuilt in Peshtigo after the fire.

Things have changed tremendously since 1871. Most recently, the Camp Fire, which now holds the record for the most destructive wildfire in California history, burned through Butte County on November 8, 2018. More than 18,000 buildings were destroyed and 85 lives were lost. The fire took 17 days to contain and cost $16.5 billion.  

Paradise was a community of over 25,000 people, built in an area with lots of ravines and full of dead wood. Although there is a lot of active fire suppression, there is also lot of available fuel in the area, made worse by drought and heat, which makes things very flammable. Mix those conditions with 70 mph gusts of wind, and it doesn’t take much to spark and flame. And it doesn’t take much more to turn that flame into a firestorm. Firestorms are so hot that aluminum tire rims can melt like wax – the melting point of aluminum is 1,221 degrees Fahrenheit – a situation like that takes on a physics of its own.

In regards to rebuilding the town, Paradise Mayor Jody Jones says she thinks Paradise will initially be smaller, “although everything will be brand new, which will be attractive and could bring more people to the community.”

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In his late 30s, Coglin decided, after a few lost years in Southern California, to trek north, live with family in the Paradise area and undertake welding and drafting at Butte County College, where he became certified.

While in the process of job-shopping, Coglin wasn’t satisfied with making $10 hourly. In early 2015, he noticed that there was only one go-to shop for bikers — something he was in his spare time.

“The old bike shop had a sign outside that said retirement sale,” said Coglin, who inquired about opening his own, after being told the owners of The Bicycle Shop weren’t selling.

A Toyota Tacoma Double Cab was all it took. After selling his prized truck for nearly $14,000, he was able to open his shop, monopolizing the bike scene in the town.

“When the shop opened, I had a bunch of tubes in display cases, and maybe five things hanging here, maybe seven things hanging there…, a repair stand,” said Coglin, who didn’t have bikes available for purchase until many months into his ownership.

While Nov. 8 was in its infancy, Coglin started his morning by checking his Facebook feed. A buddy of his from the unincorporated Concow, a neighbor of Paradise, had posted a video, doing his best “reporter in the field” impression, as flames punctuated the mise en scène.

Now, for Coglin, the winds could swerve vehicles and the smokey sky render clocks irrelevant, as he had to focus on the non-manmade semiotics and act accordingly.

“I got up, went outside and the porch lights are on, because it’s so dark…, midnight at 8 a.m.,” said Coglin, who saw ash falling but was void of smoke inhalation, as his mother, a five-time fire evacuee, did dishes calmly and patiently took cues from the radio.

Having been evacuated three times as a fire precaution, Coglin maintained the composure of a funambulist taking the final baby steps high wire, as he stuffed his cat in a carrier, took two shirts, a computer tower, and an envelope teeming with meaningful photographs.

“When you’re grabbing things to take with you, the main thought is ‘What can’t be replaced?’” said Coglin, who believed the fire was going to be controlled to where he could honor his left-behind valuables again. “My backseat was empty — if you’re thinking that you’re not going to see anything else, I would’ve grabbed tons more.”

His new Chevy HHR, with two bikes suffocating in hatchway, paused, as his street turned into a parking lot. Once his township ditched all quotidian attitude, he headed south on Clark Rd., which was operating on a makeshift third lane, all while a firetruck convoy — consisting of more departments than Coglin had ever seen — spanning multiple miles, stippled the side.

Being a local business owner, Coglin, whose shop on the main drag wasn’t directly harmed in the impromptu path of the Camp Fire, can still empathize with the many who lost their ventures, as just blocks behind his business still lay ashy cars and maligned fences.

“One of the things about this town is…there isn’t a lot of big business,” said Coglin, who said public officials have voted countless times to shoot down the possibility of erecting Wal-Mart, or something in the same vein.

The dependency of common goods moved people, and their attentions, to nearby Chico, as the staple grocery store in the town, Safeway, burned along with other stores in its surrounding plaza: a bank, a few pizza joints and glamour stores. Before the fire, one could, in Coglin’s words, “make do” with the lineup of convenience shops, shoe stores and a stationary outfit.

Because of the foothill town being 18 square miles, of which many were scorched, Paradise isn’t meant to be of dense commercial heft. There also isn’t adequate plumbing to make the grounds populationally opaque, as there is no sewer. Starbucks has been the only major business to push their thumb on this scale, by securing their own septic system — a feat in a topographically lopsided place.

Typically, the Paradise Bike owner capitalizes on parts and accessories, but, since many have lost their two wheels in the aftermath, locals are nabbing new bikes. Given his fortunate position as a surviving business owner, Coglin’s mode of enterprise could be the frequency to which others now visit, that is: seek out the local necessity to create a collectivist town, where faces are recognizable and redwoods sky upwards, to help Paradise with its rebirth.

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“It feels like it’s normal, but I know for other people around me, their whole lives just changed,” said Sophie Gruszka.

On Nov. 6, 2018, life was supposed to continue like any other day for the college students at Chico State, a public university in the California State University system. But even though the fire didn’t touch the town of Chico, the students still felt the devastation reach them in their college town.            

Gruszka, along with Clare Brady, Sandra Canizal and Malia Esteban were all attending classes at Chico State on Nov. 6.

“The day it started, there was a lot of smoke, and I remember being like, “Oh they’ll put it out soon enough,’” said Gruszka.

As the fire was raging through the ridge above, students were hearing rumors about the fire. Some students were encouraging their classmates to leave, while some just assumed this was just another California wildfire.

“I was receiving two different messages,” said Brady. “From the students, it was a little chaotic.”

At 9 a.m., the first official notification from the university went out. It alerted students to the fire that was being monitored on the ridge, but classes would still continue for the day. Updates continued throughout the day. At around 11:15 a.m., the university was still open. By that time, Paradise had been burning for hours.

Near 3 p.m., classes for the rest of the day were canceled, but the university released the information that, “Campus remains open. Classes are expected to resume tomorrow, Nov. 9,” according to the Chico State updates from the Camp Fire.

While the university was preparing for class the next day, a lot of the students were trying to find a way out of town. Many of the students at Chico State are from different areas in California, including Gruszka, Brady, Canizal and Esteban.

“It was kind of scary because I didn’t have anywhere to go home,” said Gruszka.

Students piled into cars with their roommates, friends or others who lived nearby. Some students had their plane tickets changed, as their Thanksgiving break was only two weeks away.

Canizal is from Southern California and had no clue what she was going to do until Gruszka offered her a ride to her home, which was closer to Chico. She had her flight switched and all the fees were waved so she could get home.

At about 5:40 p.m. on Nov. 9, a day after the fire had started, classes were canceled at Chico State until Nov. 26. By this point, a number of students had already left the area, fleeing to their homes if they were safe.

“When I was home, I was literally checking the progress of the fire every day, like every hour,” said Gruszka.

As students came back to campus after the two weeks off from school, their lives had changed, even as their town of Chico was untouched.

 “When I came back, all I wanted to do in my classes was just like share my story and hear other people’s stories and cope with everybody,” said Brady.

The young women talked about how their lives felt so different after the fire. Coming back to Chico had affected each of them, even though they were lucky to not have to be directly impacted by the fire.

Esteban received a new roommate after the fire; another Chico State who had been living in Paradise. She lost her home in the fire.

 As many were returning to the area, students and residents in the area were encouraged to wear masks because of the air quality. The smoke had been so bad that it even affected those living in the Bay Area.

“I wore the same one for like two weeks,” said Brady.

Even months after the fire, at the university, the fire hasn’t been forgotten. Outside of the main entrance to the library, two square support columns have been wrapped in fencing material. Tied to the fences are flowers, flyers and notes from students affected by the fire and words of encouragement from others. Some strips of paper say, “Butte Strong,” or “California Strong.”

One of the more shocking pieces on the fence is a burnt, brown leather purse. Stories of barely making it out of the fire are told on the cream-colored parchment. A reminder of how close the fire was for so many on campus.

The remembrance outside of the library was called “Remembering the Ridge.” It was part of a three-week installation to remember how the fire affected the campus on the five-month anniversary. Students and staff could contribute to the physical site itself or contribute their stories and memories on the website created for the installation.

The girls, who were all sitting at a coffee shop, talking about classes and their volunteer work, much of which helped the Camp Fire victims, look like any other group of college students around the country. The Camp Fire comes up in conversation just as naturally as any other topic related to school.

“I feel like the community has experienced it, is mentally recovering from it,” said Brady. “Nobody really talks about it.”

But the memories are still there. The impact is still lasting on the campus at Chico State. For these students and many others, the Camp Fire will be part of their college experience, one that’s full of tragedy and worry.               

For more information about Remembering the Ridge and to read some of the online stories, visit rememberingtheridge.org.

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