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Two nonfiction books on the 2018 Camp Fire, which destroyed the California town of Paradise and killed 86 people. It was caused by negligence by the power company PG&E, which failed to maintain power lines and poles that were almost 100 years old and overdue for maintenance by about 20 years.
The Camp Fire began when an ancient hook snapped, releasing a power line which set a fire in an extremely remote area in the California mountains. Fire crews were alerted almost immediately, but were unable to get to it due to narrow mountainous roads and high winds; by the time it started spreading, it went out of control almost immediately.
Paradise was one of the few California towns that had an actual evacuation plan. It was divided into evacuation zones so it could be evacuated in an orderly fashion, and had a system for warning residents via their cell phones. Unfortunately, none of this worked. The cell phone system was voluntary and very few residents signed up for it, and when alerts were sent out the system crashed and only about 10% of all residents got them. The evacuation zone system didn't work as no one got the alerts, and the fire was so huge that the entire town needed to be evacuated all at once. There was only one way out, and it got jammed almost immediately. All things considered, it was lucky more people didn't die.
The books are divided between the wider picture and accounts of some specific Paradise residents, including a woman who'd just given birth by Caesarean to a preemie and ended up being driven around and around in circles by a random hospital employee, a retired firefighter who jumps back into action, the town mayor who nearly stays behind, a man and his seven-year-old daughter, a woman whose father runs back into their burning house, and the dispatcher who makes a snap decision to evacuate the entire town without waiting for orders to do so.
I'm always fascinated by different accounts of the same event. My absolute favorite in that vein is the plethora of books on the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, as it was a very time-limited event involving a relatively small number of people of which a disproportionate number of them wrote books about it, and the books are extremely different from each other.
These books about the Paradise fire are pretty similar. Both are by journalists, both take similar approaches to the story, both have similar virtues (interesting and exciting story) and similar flaws (could have been better at explaining exactly how the fire spread; we didn't need to know what everyone's family did for the last three generations). I suspect that in a month or so, I won't be able to remember what was in which book. I liked Lizzie Johnson's better but it's marginal.
I knew PG&E was terrible but I hadn't realized that in addition to multiple fires caused by their extreme negligence followed by attempts at covering it up, they were also responsible for a pipeline explosion that killed eight people in 2010, AND the Erin Brockovich case in which they dumped toxic waste into a town's water supply. They were sued over the Paradise fire, fined a pittance which they passed on to their captive customers in increased costs, and went bankrupt, but still control a lot of California's power and show no signs of changing their ways.
To this day, most California towns have no evacuation plan and many of the ones that do have one refuse to disclose what it is, citing security concerns.
The county also did not provide the evacuation plan for the communities of Lake Arrowhead, Crestline [where I live] and Running Springs — three communities where at least 95% of residents live in very high hazard areas for wildfires.
El Dorado County officials also initially refused to release information about evacuation plans that would cover Pollock Pines, one of the 15 largest communities in the state where more than 95% of residents live in a very high hazard zone for wildfire.
"I confirmed with the [lieutenant] for our [emergency services] division that we do not release our emergency plan, for obvious security reasons," wrote El Dorado County Sheriff's Sgt. Anthony Prencipe, in an email response. He did not elaborate on those reasons.
Then, in response to a Public Records Act request, the county provided one page from its emergency operations plan that refers to evacuations. Three paragraphs on that page were blacked out.
So for supposedly for fear of some random bad actor waiting for a fire to start and then using their knowledge of the evacuation plan to try to sabotage it, the inhabitants of the towns are left with no idea whatsoever of what they're supposed to do in case of wildfire. More likely, the towns either have no plan or their plan is grossly inadequate, and the supposed security concerns are just an excuse.
The Camp Fire began when an ancient hook snapped, releasing a power line which set a fire in an extremely remote area in the California mountains. Fire crews were alerted almost immediately, but were unable to get to it due to narrow mountainous roads and high winds; by the time it started spreading, it went out of control almost immediately.
Paradise was one of the few California towns that had an actual evacuation plan. It was divided into evacuation zones so it could be evacuated in an orderly fashion, and had a system for warning residents via their cell phones. Unfortunately, none of this worked. The cell phone system was voluntary and very few residents signed up for it, and when alerts were sent out the system crashed and only about 10% of all residents got them. The evacuation zone system didn't work as no one got the alerts, and the fire was so huge that the entire town needed to be evacuated all at once. There was only one way out, and it got jammed almost immediately. All things considered, it was lucky more people didn't die.
The books are divided between the wider picture and accounts of some specific Paradise residents, including a woman who'd just given birth by Caesarean to a preemie and ended up being driven around and around in circles by a random hospital employee, a retired firefighter who jumps back into action, the town mayor who nearly stays behind, a man and his seven-year-old daughter, a woman whose father runs back into their burning house, and the dispatcher who makes a snap decision to evacuate the entire town without waiting for orders to do so.
I'm always fascinated by different accounts of the same event. My absolute favorite in that vein is the plethora of books on the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, as it was a very time-limited event involving a relatively small number of people of which a disproportionate number of them wrote books about it, and the books are extremely different from each other.
These books about the Paradise fire are pretty similar. Both are by journalists, both take similar approaches to the story, both have similar virtues (interesting and exciting story) and similar flaws (could have been better at explaining exactly how the fire spread; we didn't need to know what everyone's family did for the last three generations). I suspect that in a month or so, I won't be able to remember what was in which book. I liked Lizzie Johnson's better but it's marginal.
I knew PG&E was terrible but I hadn't realized that in addition to multiple fires caused by their extreme negligence followed by attempts at covering it up, they were also responsible for a pipeline explosion that killed eight people in 2010, AND the Erin Brockovich case in which they dumped toxic waste into a town's water supply. They were sued over the Paradise fire, fined a pittance which they passed on to their captive customers in increased costs, and went bankrupt, but still control a lot of California's power and show no signs of changing their ways.
To this day, most California towns have no evacuation plan and many of the ones that do have one refuse to disclose what it is, citing security concerns.
The county also did not provide the evacuation plan for the communities of Lake Arrowhead, Crestline [where I live] and Running Springs — three communities where at least 95% of residents live in very high hazard areas for wildfires.
El Dorado County officials also initially refused to release information about evacuation plans that would cover Pollock Pines, one of the 15 largest communities in the state where more than 95% of residents live in a very high hazard zone for wildfire.
"I confirmed with the [lieutenant] for our [emergency services] division that we do not release our emergency plan, for obvious security reasons," wrote El Dorado County Sheriff's Sgt. Anthony Prencipe, in an email response. He did not elaborate on those reasons.
Then, in response to a Public Records Act request, the county provided one page from its emergency operations plan that refers to evacuations. Three paragraphs on that page were blacked out.
So for supposedly for fear of some random bad actor waiting for a fire to start and then using their knowledge of the evacuation plan to try to sabotage it, the inhabitants of the towns are left with no idea whatsoever of what they're supposed to do in case of wildfire. More likely, the towns either have no plan or their plan is grossly inadequate, and the supposed security concerns are just an excuse.