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Butte County officials offer experience, response to Palisades, Eaton
fires

PARADISE — It was a scene all too familiar to anyone in Butte County.

“Watching those towns burn on TV and listening to, ‘No rain in a long
time; 85 mph winds; can’t get air support up … traveling three football
fields a minute, … (It’s) exactly what we went through,” said Steve
Crowder, the mayor of Paradise.

The Camp Fire, which started because of a downed PG&E power line on Nov.
8, 2018, burned more than 153,000 acres, destroyed 13,500 homes and killed
85 people, effectively leveling Paradise and some surrounding communities. Crowder, who had been elected to the town council just two days before the fire, had his home destroyed. And Wednesday, he learned his daughter’s
Altadena home had been destroyed by the Eaton Fire, one of several fires causing widespread destruction in Los Angeles County.

Just as the Camp Fire displaced around 50,000 people in Butte County, the Palisades, Eaton, Kenneth, Hurst, Lidia and Sunset fires have left
thousands of people without a home in Southern California. Beyond
headlines, fire-devastated communities in the north state share an acute understanding for fire victims in the south — and its elected officials
have offered many words of hard-earned wisdom to their fellow citizens on
what lies ahead.

Related: Paradise, Eaton wildfires among California’s 4 most destructive
in history

“We still got a pretty town. It’s not like it was; it will never be like
it was. That was the first thing I heard from (my daughter) was, ‘I don’t
think we can go back there cause it’s never going to look the same,’”
Crowder said.

“And she’s right. It’s never going to look the same, but it can still be
home.”

Paradise is six years into rebuilding its town — it was actually the fastest-growing town in the state in 2023, with a population increase of
more than 16%. During this rebuild, leaders have improved evacuation
procedures and set prospects for building fire-wise communities.

But there’s no quick or easy road.

“It’s hard to tell people to have patience,” Crowder said.

Initial response
Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea has led numerous evacuations in Butte
County in a series of crisis that dates back to even before the Camp Fire.
If there’s one thing he’s learned, it’s that there are no shortcuts to recovery.

“Where I sit today, having been through the Camp Fire, North Complex fire,
the Park Fire — is I understand that they’re at the very beginning of a
very long, and very difficult process that’s going to last months, if not years,” Honea said. “I know this is a hard thing to do, but this is not
going to be a fast process. And sometimes patience is going to be required
to navigate through the challenges.”

Honea, who has sent sergeant Dave Ennes south to assist Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna along with a search and rescue team, was struck by the similarities to the Camp Fire.

Related: Wildfires redefine ‘OK’ and ‘safe’ for all in Southern California

“The same kind of destruction that we saw in Paradise, where, house after house, neighborhood after neighborhood was destroyed,” he said. As other
fires followed, he said his office learned and refined their process, and
now sends evacuation warnings far in advance: “We recognize how rapid
fires go.”

Pressure brought by evacuees — and even non-evacuated people — caused
problems for BCSO in maintaining safety for residents, also similar to
sights in Los Angeles, according to Honea.

He said there is an understanding of people seeking to return home to
salvage belongings or take pictures for insurance, but a balance must be
struck in maintaining safety and allowing people back home.

“During the initial response, do pay attention to what public safety
officials say in regards to warnings, evacuations — and recognize that
there is still a lot of risk and danger that they’re trying to mitigate at
this point, Honea said.

He added that people looking for information during a disaster often end
up spreading misinformation, which Honea said “drains resources” in trying
to verify that information.

The race to rebuild
Crowder, too, emphasizes that there is a long road ahead — but making some
key decisions early in the process is key. He said the top priority for
people must be to secure long-term housing as quickly as possible.

He said after the Camp Fire displaced 50,000 people in the Paradise-
Magalia area, every apartment in Butte County was quickly filled. He
thinks the same may happen in Southern California.

“Better find long-term housing, like right now, because it’s going to be
gone, and if you’re looking to buy a house, prices are going to jump,”
Crowder said. “If you don’t do that now, you’re going to have a heck of a
time finding it because you’re going to compete with I-don’t-know-how-many people.”

Related: Demand for temporary housing likely to push up rent prices

Whether returning to a home intact or a home destroyed, community members
must make decisions on how to proceed after a disaster. Crowder said some people decide to leave forever, even if their home was saved, while others
make a determination to return or rebuild.

As Paradise began to rebuild, the population consisted of about 80% locals
and 20% from out of town, he said. But six years later, the split looks
50-50, he said, in part due to lower cost housing and local schools
attracting young families. The population is currently around 11,000, a
fair step toward its pre-Camp Fire total of 26,000.

In his eyes, though, this doesn’t yet add up to a “rebuild.”

“Newspapers and TV places … everybody wants to ask about Paradise and I
get it,” Crowder said. “They ask, ‘Well, how do you feel now that Paradise
is rebuilt?’

“And I’m like, ‘What do you mean? We’re not even close to being rebuilt.
This is a 20-year rebuild, and that’s going to be a shock for people when
it comes to that reality.”

The government’s role
While homeowners and renters grappled with everything from insurance
claims to debris removal in Butte County, elected officials used their
power to connect people with necessary resources, along with writing legislation.

Assemblyman James Gallagher (R-Yuba City), the state’s Republican minority leader, said he advocated for resources including debris removal programs
(more than 3.6 million tons of debris and contaminated soil were removed
from the Camp Fire footprint in the nine months following the fire) along
with funding to rebuild destroyed irrigation systems.

He said long-term recovery efforts should focus on securing insurance
claims and working with government agencies and nonprofits. One local
group, the North Valley Community Foundation, dispersed $62.6 million in fire-related grants in Butte County, money that included an initial $1
million donation from a foundation headed by NFL quarterback Aaron
Rodgers, a native of Chico.

Gallagher also encouraged citizens to keep an eye on the mental health of themselves and loved ones.

“Look out for family members. There was a lot of people under the severe
stress of that experience that led to health problems later,” Gallagher
said. “This is an extremely hard thing to go through.”

Like Gallagher, Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale) said insurance claims — and PG&E’s Fire Victim Trust — garnered a lot of his office’s attention.

Taxes on settlement claims by fire victims posed an issue for Fire Victim
Trust claimants, according to LaMalfa. He led the passing of the Disaster Resiliency and Coverage Act of 2024, which exempted taxes for settlement
claims by fire victims and would do the same for people in southern
California fires, if applicable. President Biden signed the bill into law
last month.

Both LaMalfa and Gallagher said the best thing that can be done going
forward is to prevent these fires before they happen. Using some of the
same words he used on the floor of Congress this week, LaMalfa said the
fires in southern California emphasize a need for aggressive land
management.

“We know every year that the Santa Ana winds are going to blow and there’s going to be a lot of risk,” LaMalfa said. “We can’t always control what we
can do with their buildings or homes, but forest management and land
management of the federal lands — that’s something we have direct
jurisdiction over. We keep losing, and that gets back to insurability.”

The road ahead
When Crowder lost his home in the Camp Fire, he and his wife made a
decision to stay, and he witnessed his town wrestle with devastation.

“Every part of the town looked the same. It was gone. It looked like a
nuclear bomb had gone off. And driving around, I’m looking, I’m going, ‘Oh
man, how is this ever gonna come back?’”

But it did, he said, with each visit he made from Chico up to Paradise;
each conversation he had with a neighbor; and every phone call to him
asking, “what can we do to help you,” even from people who lost their
home.

“That’s who Paradise was, and that’s what I believe has really driven the rebuild — people came back because of the community,” Crowder said. “That
fire took 95% of our town, and it took zero of our community spirit.”

https://www.ocregister.com/2025/01/12/what-la-can-learn-from-2018-fire- that-destroyed-paradise-it-will-never-be-like-it-was-but-it-can-still-be-
home/

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