Rebuilding Paradise: five years on from California’s deadliest fire | News

“This firestorm just descended upon them,” Guardian US reporter Dani Anguiano tells Hannah Moore. “It was dark, it was smoky, it was incredibly hot, and people there had no warning at all.”

The Camp Fire began on an unseasonably warm morning in November 2018. A Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) transmission line off a dirt track called Camp Creek Road sparked the blaze, which quickly spread across the county. At least 85 people were killed and around 90% of the buildings in the town of Paradise were destroyed.

Dani Anguiano and Alastair Gee, authors of Fire in Paradise: An American Tragedy, tell Hannah how the community has managed to rebuild the town. Why are people still determined to live in Paradise?



Photograph: Noah Berger/AP

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