Paradise Burned to the Ground. Now It’s Another Hot Housing Market.
May 26, 2022 9:01 AM Subscribe
Do people in wildfire zones have to carry fire insurance the way people in flood zones need to for flooding? Seems like they should tbh, especially given the amount of money pouring into this thing.
posted by Ferreous at 9:15 AM on May 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Ferreous at 9:15 AM on May 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
"Anyone" is a stretch. I would think many folks would have predicted this exact scenario. Disaster capitalism 101 -- fresh start for moneyed investors.
posted by mrgrimm at 9:18 AM on May 26, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by mrgrimm at 9:18 AM on May 26, 2022 [3 favorites]
I highly recommend the documentary Bring Your Own Brigade about the fire.
posted by ceejaytee at 9:41 AM on May 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by ceejaytee at 9:41 AM on May 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
I have a friend whose home got burned down in 2020 (not Paradise, the LMU one). I'm still flabbergasted that the family is rebuilding in their old spot. It was always high risk for fire over there in the first place and the entire neighborhood except for one building in the back was burned up. Like, presumably they own the property and insurance has taken care of them very well and everything and I presume that's why, but I don't think I could just rebuild there and then try to go back to that area like nothing ever happened.
On a related note, another fire broke out over the weekend and my mom told me it was around their area. I immediately texted to ask if the house was on fire again and got a casual response like, "eh, that area's always likely to be on fire, it's only 6 miles from the house, NBD."
I'm not saying anything, of course, because Not My Business, but I can't even imagine doing that. Then again, they are Country People, and Country People seem to have a different way of thinking on stuff like that that I as a suburban girl don't understand. That may very well be the case in this article as well, since "cheap-ish place to buy a home in California" sounds like it takes precedence over "your home may burn up."
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:59 AM on May 26, 2022 [5 favorites]
On a related note, another fire broke out over the weekend and my mom told me it was around their area. I immediately texted to ask if the house was on fire again and got a casual response like, "eh, that area's always likely to be on fire, it's only 6 miles from the house, NBD."
I'm not saying anything, of course, because Not My Business, but I can't even imagine doing that. Then again, they are Country People, and Country People seem to have a different way of thinking on stuff like that that I as a suburban girl don't understand. That may very well be the case in this article as well, since "cheap-ish place to buy a home in California" sounds like it takes precedence over "your home may burn up."
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:59 AM on May 26, 2022 [5 favorites]
I knew before opening the article it was Paradise (my sister lives in a Chico). Part of gentrification is the enjoyment of moving in to where other (poorer) people were displaced, be it fire victims, artists, or factory buildings where ordinary workers made an honest living.
posted by Melismata at 10:37 AM on May 26, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Melismata at 10:37 AM on May 26, 2022 [3 favorites]
California housing prices are its own 40+ year disaster in the making.
The tone of this article, though - don't people in tornado country rebuild regularly? Don't we celebrate redevelopment efforts in places like New Orleans after disaster strikes? As long as people know that they'll be evacuating due to fire danger every few years and their home will might burn down every ten. I don't know how you can forget the fire when you're surrounded by all the results of it.
posted by meowzilla at 10:40 AM on May 26, 2022 [8 favorites]
The tone of this article, though - don't people in tornado country rebuild regularly? Don't we celebrate redevelopment efforts in places like New Orleans after disaster strikes? As long as people know that they'll be evacuating due to fire danger every few years and their home will might burn down every ten. I don't know how you can forget the fire when you're surrounded by all the results of it.
posted by meowzilla at 10:40 AM on May 26, 2022 [8 favorites]
I thought the risk of fire actually goes down for a place that has burned (since there is less ground brush and whatnot)? So those most at risk are people living in equivalent areas in CA that haven't burned lately.
Don't we celebrate redevelopment efforts in places like New Orleans after disaster strikes?
In the aftermath of Katrina, there was a lot of "why bother rebuild" talk, that New Orleanians still remember bitterly.
posted by coffeecat at 10:56 AM on May 26, 2022 [12 favorites]
Don't we celebrate redevelopment efforts in places like New Orleans after disaster strikes?
In the aftermath of Katrina, there was a lot of "why bother rebuild" talk, that New Orleanians still remember bitterly.
posted by coffeecat at 10:56 AM on May 26, 2022 [12 favorites]
The tone of this article, though - don't people in tornado country rebuild regularly?
Tornadoes don't destroy a whole city in one go. That's why insurance companies are happy to insure against them. They have reliable data on the damage from tornadoes so they won't go bankrupt from just one F5. The same thing applies to run of the mill house fires. If you underprice the risk, you start to lose money, but at a manageable pace, so you can get some warning and start raising premiums.
So if you live in tornado country, and you have insurance, why not rebuild?
Hurricanes and floods are another matter. If your actuaries miscalculate the risk and you set your premiums too low, one hurricane or one burst on the Mississippi and your company is gone.
Forest fires are increasingly going into the same bucket as hurricanes.
posted by ocschwar at 11:07 AM on May 26, 2022 [10 favorites]
Do people in wildfire zones have to carry fire insurance the way people in flood zones need to for flooding?--Ferreous
Another way of looking at it is that people in risky wildfire zones have just as much difficulty in getting insurance as people in risky flood zones. Sometimes the insurance company will just say "Sorry--no insurance for you. We'd go broke."
posted by eye of newt at 11:53 AM on May 26, 2022
Another way of looking at it is that people in risky wildfire zones have just as much difficulty in getting insurance as people in risky flood zones. Sometimes the insurance company will just say "Sorry--no insurance for you. We'd go broke."
posted by eye of newt at 11:53 AM on May 26, 2022
Do people in wildfire zones have to carry fire insurance the way people in flood zones need to for flooding? Seems like they should tbh, especially given the amount of money pouring into this thing.
Nope. On the contrary, many areas are uninsurable (yet people still build houses and live there). Here's an article about Montecito and fire insurance:
Nope. On the contrary, many areas are uninsurable (yet people still build houses and live there). Here's an article about Montecito and fire insurance:
Best known as the home of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the duke and duchess of Sussex, Montecito is one of the world’s wealthiest enclaves. The exclusive Central Coast town, on the southern tip of Santa Barbara County, has just 8,200 people living in 9.2 square miles on the coast of the Pacific Ocean.posted by Lexica at 11:58 AM on May 26, 2022 [4 favorites]
Montecito also happens to occupy one of the most dangerous and increasingly active climate change-fueled disaster footprints in the U.S. To live there not only means paying a premium — but risking it all. Despite the wealth of its residents, this tony neighborhood is almost uninsurable.
Tornadoes don't destroy a whole city in one go.
They certainly come pretty close occasionally, but the important factor is that they don't tend to do it consecutively in the way that hurricanes do.
Do people in wildfire zones have to carry fire insurance the way people in flood zones need to for flooding?
People in flood zones actually are not required to carry flood insurance, unless it's a requirement of their mortgage. But a large percentage of homes are paid off, and don't have a mortgage, so as many as 60% forego flood insurance due to the cost. Only about 85% percent of homes carry any insurance and supposedly 22% are far under-insured relative to the replacement value of their home.
So that's a lot of non and under-insured homes.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:17 PM on May 26, 2022 [3 favorites]
They certainly come pretty close occasionally, but the important factor is that they don't tend to do it consecutively in the way that hurricanes do.
Do people in wildfire zones have to carry fire insurance the way people in flood zones need to for flooding?
People in flood zones actually are not required to carry flood insurance, unless it's a requirement of their mortgage. But a large percentage of homes are paid off, and don't have a mortgage, so as many as 60% forego flood insurance due to the cost. Only about 85% percent of homes carry any insurance and supposedly 22% are far under-insured relative to the replacement value of their home.
So that's a lot of non and under-insured homes.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:17 PM on May 26, 2022 [3 favorites]
I'll be brief as I am unable to find the article I sourced information from. What I'll say is a very broad stroke.
Granted the blame being directed towards PG and E.
You also had a town that was very anti-goverment. Because of this sewage and water systems were virtually non-existent. Apparently, the community often voted down any sort of upgrade, proud of their individualism
posted by goalyeehah at 12:23 PM on May 26, 2022 [5 favorites]
Granted the blame being directed towards PG and E.
You also had a town that was very anti-goverment. Because of this sewage and water systems were virtually non-existent. Apparently, the community often voted down any sort of upgrade, proud of their individualism
posted by goalyeehah at 12:23 PM on May 26, 2022 [5 favorites]
The Milbauer home at the top of this article is not in Paradise. It's on a hill five miles from town, a few hundred yards past the containment line. I have notes in my journal from November when it listed and February when it closed. A creek flows past the home into Paradise Lake through primeval forest protected from logging. This is a world apart from the Town of Paradise, though parachute journos like to conflate them.
I have been keeping close watch on the housing market here, to evaluate whether to sell my own place and to forecast whether the area will repopulate quickly enough to bring back everything from the hospital to the hardware store that contributed to our quality of life.
There was a housing bubble in early 2019 as people who still had jobs or other ties to the area competed for standing homes put up for sale by people who lost either their workplaces or healthcare providers and could no longer stay. This was the "hottest housing market" in the country at the time. Then prices eased a bit, as it was more affordable to build or have a manufactured home installed on one of the thousands of vacant lots than to buy one of the few homes on the market. Then supply chains collapsed and material prices spiked and the wait time for manufactured home deliveries went from five weeks to twelve months. Now prices have gone bonkers.
The fire in the Town arrived on wind-blown embers and spread from building to building in an urban firestorm. The Palade home survived partly because it's on a cul-de-sac with newer, less flammable neighboring homes, and partly because it backs to an empty field that used to be one of Paradise's orchards. There was little fuel there, so fire burned with low intensity. Similarly the area by Paradise Lake burned with low intensity, partly due to responsible forest management (rather than aggressive clearing or total neglect), and partly because homes are spaced widely enough not to ignite one another. Neither home survived by blind luck. There are patterns in this chaos.
The Camp Fire was not a poorly managed lightning fire like the nearby 2020 Bear Fire or the LMU. It was arson, the worst mass homicide in the US since 9/11, and the worst in California since San Francisquito in 1928. Paradise was not built below sea level or in a flood plain where disaster will inevitably recur. The comparison is not to New Orleans, but to Lockerbie which was similarly unfortunate to be downwind of a heinous crime.
Insurance companies do not understand that, and even though the insurers recouped eleven figures from the perpetrator to offset paid claims, rates have risen sharply both here and throughout the Wildland-Urban Interface. It is common for people to be paying more than double in 2022 what they paid in 2018, if they can even find anyone to write a policy. We are not required to have fire insurance, and many of us don't because the price is not commensurate with the risk. Paradise is working with a consortium including actuaries and reinsurers to come up with a model for community-wide mitigation that would make insurance available and affordable again. Other companies are working on new data-driven modeling at a very granular level, identifying specific risks on a specific parcel that might make a home more likely to ignite.
All of this is significant as re: cost of housing, as the potentially exorbitant cost of fire insurance gets rolled into mortgage payments to protect lenders' investments. As the article mentions, this used to be a relatively affordable place to live. Not so much now, and not likely in the near future.
The Camp Fire destroyed 12000 housing units in Paradise in November, 2018. Three and a half years later, less than one-seventh have been rebuilt. Of the 3000 in surrounding unincorporated areas, less than one-ninth. The loss of this housing stock created a county-wide shortage that has made it difficult for Chico and Oroville employers to hire as there is nowhere for employees to live. One-off spec builds and new manufactured homes on private lots get snapped up immediately.
Yet there is still little here; it is very difficult to live here without frequent trips to the valley. Our business sector was incinerated. Most working people spend their days elsewhere and come here to sleep. The fabric of the community is not and will never be the same.
I have quite a lot to say about how people like Aaron Gordon and Lucy Walker try to tell our story and about how our reality on the ground relates to Xenia, OH or Greensburg, KS or Borodyanka. The cost of housing is just one aspect of this, the elephant's tail of a disaster too vast to fully comprehend.
posted by backwoods at 12:29 PM on May 26, 2022 [47 favorites]
I have been keeping close watch on the housing market here, to evaluate whether to sell my own place and to forecast whether the area will repopulate quickly enough to bring back everything from the hospital to the hardware store that contributed to our quality of life.
There was a housing bubble in early 2019 as people who still had jobs or other ties to the area competed for standing homes put up for sale by people who lost either their workplaces or healthcare providers and could no longer stay. This was the "hottest housing market" in the country at the time. Then prices eased a bit, as it was more affordable to build or have a manufactured home installed on one of the thousands of vacant lots than to buy one of the few homes on the market. Then supply chains collapsed and material prices spiked and the wait time for manufactured home deliveries went from five weeks to twelve months. Now prices have gone bonkers.
The fire in the Town arrived on wind-blown embers and spread from building to building in an urban firestorm. The Palade home survived partly because it's on a cul-de-sac with newer, less flammable neighboring homes, and partly because it backs to an empty field that used to be one of Paradise's orchards. There was little fuel there, so fire burned with low intensity. Similarly the area by Paradise Lake burned with low intensity, partly due to responsible forest management (rather than aggressive clearing or total neglect), and partly because homes are spaced widely enough not to ignite one another. Neither home survived by blind luck. There are patterns in this chaos.
The Camp Fire was not a poorly managed lightning fire like the nearby 2020 Bear Fire or the LMU. It was arson, the worst mass homicide in the US since 9/11, and the worst in California since San Francisquito in 1928. Paradise was not built below sea level or in a flood plain where disaster will inevitably recur. The comparison is not to New Orleans, but to Lockerbie which was similarly unfortunate to be downwind of a heinous crime.
Insurance companies do not understand that, and even though the insurers recouped eleven figures from the perpetrator to offset paid claims, rates have risen sharply both here and throughout the Wildland-Urban Interface. It is common for people to be paying more than double in 2022 what they paid in 2018, if they can even find anyone to write a policy. We are not required to have fire insurance, and many of us don't because the price is not commensurate with the risk. Paradise is working with a consortium including actuaries and reinsurers to come up with a model for community-wide mitigation that would make insurance available and affordable again. Other companies are working on new data-driven modeling at a very granular level, identifying specific risks on a specific parcel that might make a home more likely to ignite.
All of this is significant as re: cost of housing, as the potentially exorbitant cost of fire insurance gets rolled into mortgage payments to protect lenders' investments. As the article mentions, this used to be a relatively affordable place to live. Not so much now, and not likely in the near future.
The Camp Fire destroyed 12000 housing units in Paradise in November, 2018. Three and a half years later, less than one-seventh have been rebuilt. Of the 3000 in surrounding unincorporated areas, less than one-ninth. The loss of this housing stock created a county-wide shortage that has made it difficult for Chico and Oroville employers to hire as there is nowhere for employees to live. One-off spec builds and new manufactured homes on private lots get snapped up immediately.
Yet there is still little here; it is very difficult to live here without frequent trips to the valley. Our business sector was incinerated. Most working people spend their days elsewhere and come here to sleep. The fabric of the community is not and will never be the same.
I have quite a lot to say about how people like Aaron Gordon and Lucy Walker try to tell our story and about how our reality on the ground relates to Xenia, OH or Greensburg, KS or Borodyanka. The cost of housing is just one aspect of this, the elephant's tail of a disaster too vast to fully comprehend.
posted by backwoods at 12:29 PM on May 26, 2022 [47 favorites]
backwood, would be interested in your take on the Paradise families vs. science teacher on climate data as described in this TAL segment, if it’s an issue you have thoughts about…
posted by progosk at 2:33 PM on May 26, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by progosk at 2:33 PM on May 26, 2022 [3 favorites]
Well at least they did not pave Paradise and turn it into a parking lot.
posted by Midnight Skulker at 2:39 PM on May 26, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by Midnight Skulker at 2:39 PM on May 26, 2022 [4 favorites]
I'll be brief as I am unable to find the article I sourced information from.
The LA Times did a deep dive into CA housing policies and climate change about 18 months ago. A good 40% of the article was the planning situation (or lack of) around Paradise.
I'm afraid I can't find the article with a cursory google news search, but it was excellent.
posted by suelac at 3:11 PM on May 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
The LA Times did a deep dive into CA housing policies and climate change about 18 months ago. A good 40% of the article was the planning situation (or lack of) around Paradise.
I'm afraid I can't find the article with a cursory google news search, but it was excellent.
posted by suelac at 3:11 PM on May 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
I'm a Chico resident and right now there is a controversy about hooking up Paradise to our sewer system (Paradise is septic). Our unpopular City Council wants to sell the sewer to Cal Water. This will inevitably raise rates and increase waiting times for the many homeowners in Chico who have been waiting 10+ years to hook up to the sewer. Chico's city services are stretched due to growth and the pension deficit which is hoovering up revenue wherever it can. Another controversy for another day.
When I saw Paradise after the fire I couldn't imagine wanting to move back, not only because of the trauma but because the town looks utterly different, scarred and sun bleached. But I understand people are getting their homes rebuilt and can't afford to live in elsewhere in California. I also understand people wanting to move here even though real estate is inflated and jobs are low paying. This is California. Still.....the last 2 summers we have been unable to go outside for at least a month because of smoke. It's nearly impossible to find someone to fix anything as they are busy with big jobs here and in Paradise. Young families can't afford to buy, rents are skyrocketing. It's hard to feel "blessed" owning my house when so many Chicoans are struggling.
posted by mygraycatbongo at 4:51 PM on May 26, 2022 [7 favorites]
When I saw Paradise after the fire I couldn't imagine wanting to move back, not only because of the trauma but because the town looks utterly different, scarred and sun bleached. But I understand people are getting their homes rebuilt and can't afford to live in elsewhere in California. I also understand people wanting to move here even though real estate is inflated and jobs are low paying. This is California. Still.....the last 2 summers we have been unable to go outside for at least a month because of smoke. It's nearly impossible to find someone to fix anything as they are busy with big jobs here and in Paradise. Young families can't afford to buy, rents are skyrocketing. It's hard to feel "blessed" owning my house when so many Chicoans are struggling.
posted by mygraycatbongo at 4:51 PM on May 26, 2022 [7 favorites]
California wants to force insurers to reward homeowners for fireproofing homes
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:22 PM on May 26, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:22 PM on May 26, 2022 [3 favorites]
Those images of the change in tree cover are surreal.
My ex-husband was born in Paradise, and his grandmother's home was ultimately donated to the town to serve as an assisted living facility. We would go up from time to time to see the place and walk around with him telling stories about his memories there. Even then I can remember meeting old family relations, neighbors who still remembered him and his family, chatting with folks at restaurants and gas stations. Seeing those vistas plucked bald is something else. Reading about the difficulties that followed is not a surprise, I hate to say. My mind turns to all those old relations and neighbors and regulars.
When the Camp fire began and filled the Bay with smoke, it was serious enough that our neighbors shared N95s with us. Afterwad, the neighborhood Fire Department and Library offered more masks to prepare for the next wildfire. It was not lost on us at the time that we were breathing the smoke of my ex's birthplace. It was not lost on me when the pandemic started that that fire was the reason I had N95s in the bathroom cupboard.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 5:32 AM on May 27, 2022 [9 favorites]
My ex-husband was born in Paradise, and his grandmother's home was ultimately donated to the town to serve as an assisted living facility. We would go up from time to time to see the place and walk around with him telling stories about his memories there. Even then I can remember meeting old family relations, neighbors who still remembered him and his family, chatting with folks at restaurants and gas stations. Seeing those vistas plucked bald is something else. Reading about the difficulties that followed is not a surprise, I hate to say. My mind turns to all those old relations and neighbors and regulars.
When the Camp fire began and filled the Bay with smoke, it was serious enough that our neighbors shared N95s with us. Afterwad, the neighborhood Fire Department and Library offered more masks to prepare for the next wildfire. It was not lost on us at the time that we were breathing the smoke of my ex's birthplace. It was not lost on me when the pandemic started that that fire was the reason I had N95s in the bathroom cupboard.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 5:32 AM on May 27, 2022 [9 favorites]
There is a Bush Sr. documentary where he talks about rebuilding the Bush family's Kennebunkport home that was completely destroyed in a storm surge and which would likely be destroyed again by another storm surge and he essentially said "We like this spot and that is what all the money is for"
posted by srboisvert at 5:54 AM on May 27, 2022
posted by srboisvert at 5:54 AM on May 27, 2022
There are lots of places that used to have temporary residences that were like one step up from tar paper shacks but used to get flooded out/destroyed by a hurricane/ taken out by avalanche on the regular and just rebuilt but with the increase in housing prices have been repurposed to permanent residences. This of course is causing problems when the new much more expensive residences get wiped out by the inevitable flood/storm/avalanche.
Obviously the Bush's easily replaceable shack level is much higher than the median.
posted by Mitheral at 6:08 AM on May 27, 2022 [2 favorites]
Obviously the Bush's easily replaceable shack level is much higher than the median.
posted by Mitheral at 6:08 AM on May 27, 2022 [2 favorites]
Despite the wealth of its residents, this tony neighborhood is almost uninsurable.
The 'almost' in there is because there is pretty much no such thing as "uninsurable". There are insurance companies that will insure anything no matter how high the risk is. The problem is that premiums will be so high that you might as well just bank the premiums yourself because as the risk climbs the premiums will get closer and closer to the claim payout.
posted by srboisvert at 6:11 AM on May 27, 2022
The 'almost' in there is because there is pretty much no such thing as "uninsurable". There are insurance companies that will insure anything no matter how high the risk is. The problem is that premiums will be so high that you might as well just bank the premiums yourself because as the risk climbs the premiums will get closer and closer to the claim payout.
posted by srboisvert at 6:11 AM on May 27, 2022
srboisvert: Not just the Bushes. During hurricane season and winter storms with high winds and a lot of coastal flooding, residents of Maine are accustomed to seeing TV journalists reporting from a seaside village in the city of Saco (very close to Kennebunkport) where residents are constantly asking for more federal funds to shore up the dunes and the seawall.
It is a heartbreakingly beautiful setting, no doubt, but nobody ever seems to accept the trade-off: You live in a geographically vulnerable place. Why does everyone else have to finance it?
suelac: If you ever dig up the LAT link in question, I would be very interested in reading it. (I also like to share such stories with my octogenarian dad, a retired mechanical engineer who chaired my hometown's planning board for many years and knows how lack of planning can play out down the road.) Anyway, I did find this, but it's from 2018 and it doesn't have the climate change focus as well as the planning one.
posted by virago at 6:16 AM on May 27, 2022
It is a heartbreakingly beautiful setting, no doubt, but nobody ever seems to accept the trade-off: You live in a geographically vulnerable place. Why does everyone else have to finance it?
suelac: If you ever dig up the LAT link in question, I would be very interested in reading it. (I also like to share such stories with my octogenarian dad, a retired mechanical engineer who chaired my hometown's planning board for many years and knows how lack of planning can play out down the road.) Anyway, I did find this, but it's from 2018 and it doesn't have the climate change focus as well as the planning one.
posted by virago at 6:16 AM on May 27, 2022
It feels like the impulse of Americans to live in a faux rural setting in an area with no winter drives so much terrible high risk development. Building in places that are always a matter of not if but when will the major disaster strike. All the while the areas most resistant to climate change keep seeing people leave to go live in said high risk areas.
There's also the racial/class element of extreme exurban development into high risk areas that are ultimately part of a natural cycle that is antithetical to permanent human habitation.
posted by Ferreous at 7:14 AM on May 27, 2022
There's also the racial/class element of extreme exurban development into high risk areas that are ultimately part of a natural cycle that is antithetical to permanent human habitation.
posted by Ferreous at 7:14 AM on May 27, 2022
The LA Times did a deep dive into CA housing policies and climate change about 18 months ago. A good 40% of the article was the planning situation (or lack of) around Paradise.
If you ever dig up the LAT link in question, I would be very interested in reading it.
Me too, because I honest to god want to understand how a city that maxed out at 35k in population could be worth 40% of an article about CA housing policies. IMO it's probably more accurate to say that the people who lived in Paradise were driven out of the the populated parts of CA by cost so to hang this on any planning that Paradise could or should do seems insane.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:28 AM on May 27, 2022
If you ever dig up the LAT link in question, I would be very interested in reading it.
Me too, because I honest to god want to understand how a city that maxed out at 35k in population could be worth 40% of an article about CA housing policies. IMO it's probably more accurate to say that the people who lived in Paradise were driven out of the the populated parts of CA by cost so to hang this on any planning that Paradise could or should do seems insane.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:28 AM on May 27, 2022
I think in an article like that paradise functions as a synedoche. It represents a lot of the exurbs built in risky places without planning or foresight around the risks presented by trying to recreate an isolated suburbia in the middle of an area that is prone to natural disaster. I understand that the fire was created by poor wire maintenance but there are a huge number of other things that could have caused it eventually, lighting strike, a thrown cigarette, old gas powered equipment without a spark arresetor, etc.
posted by Ferreous at 8:58 AM on May 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Ferreous at 8:58 AM on May 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
The poor transmission maintenance is itself is the result of poor regulation and arguably extraction of dividends from what should be a publicly owned utility. The time of this fire was 100% avoidable.
posted by Mitheral at 10:08 AM on May 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Mitheral at 10:08 AM on May 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
I thought the risk of fire actually goes down for a place that has burned (since there is less ground brush and whatnot)? So those most at risk are people living in equivalent areas in CA that haven't burned lately.
In the California evergreen biome, fire risk is lowest where the forest floor has recently burned while the canopy remains intact. Where the canopy is destroyed, wet winters engender eruptions of brush that no longer has to compete with mature trees for moisture and sunlight. Flammable invasives like broom establish faster than resistant natives like manzanita and buckeye. Properties in and around Paradise that had been tall ponderosa forest are now waist-high thickets of kindling. This small-diameter vegetation burns much hotter than forest litter and poses a threat to nearby homes which has deterred some from rebuilding.
I'm a Chico resident and right now there is a controversy about hooking up Paradise to our sewer system (Paradise is septic)
Quite so. Local context others might miss is that Paradise had been the largest community west of the Mississippi without sanitary sewer. Which derived in part from its haphazard development before incorporation (and before the Map Act put an end to such madness) but also from its topography. Paradise sits on a Quaternary volcanic flow sloping down toward the Central Valley and dissected by drainages. Putting all of the Town on a sewer system would involve a prohibitive amount of pumping, and then there's the matter of where to build a treatment plant and where to discharge the effluent.
While Paradise developed with no local government or planning oversight, quartering lots hither and yon, each new home had its own septic system. Consequently, residents did not want to cover the cost of a technically challenging sewer. Over time, more septics began to fail, and the Town considered sewer for the commercial corridors in 2017. Then the Camp Fire and the heavy equipment removing all the fire debris and contaminated soil destroyed most of the septic systems in town. Along with the federal disaster recovery funding and worldwide attention on Paradise, people in Town government I've talked with believe they can get outside funding to run sanitary sewer down the primary arterials, down the foot of the Ridge, and across to Chico's plant on the Sac River. So far they've gotten funding for the environmental assessment and a lot of pushback from Chico residents concerned that new infrastructure through what is now ag land will promote urban sprawl.
If sewer did come to Paradise, it would enable denser development like townhomes and mid-rises that don't work with septic and which would provide places to live for people who can't afford a new single-family detached. But right now the Town is all individual septics, which means tanks and drainfields and reserve drainfields and their setbacks contribute to the cost of new housing.
your take on the Paradise families vs. science teacher on climate data as described in this TAL segment, if it’s an issue you have thoughts about
tl;dl NPR exhumed a story from early 2019 where a climate reporter found two middle schoolers (in the repurposed Orchard Supply store while Paradise Intermediate was closed due to smoke damage) whose parents were denialists. The star pupil believes the Camp Fire was caused by dangling powerlines, the elephant's tusk, while the reporter believes it was caused by greenhouse gas emissions, the elephant's trunk priming the fuel.
The disaster was caused by all of these things. Warrens of dead-end private roads and same-age monocrop plantations carrying fire into populated areas and bulb-outs on the main arterial (a response to a middle schooler being killed in the crosswalk outside the Boys and Girls Club) all contributed to the death toll. And car culture in general, speaking as someone who evacuated on a bicycle and avoided the traffic jam. Yet the tendency of outside media is to take the aspect they understand from their outside perspective (Hottest summer on record! Roads were too narrow!) as the reference frame for their narrative. While generally portraying us as hayseeds as well.
I have GYOB thoughts about media portrayal of the Camp Fire and find pieces like this one excruciating as they continue to shape the public discourse and legislative landscape that will ultimately get us out of or trap us within our purgatory.
Milbauer said her family came out better off after their own house fire. I have said the lucky ones in the Camp Fire were those who got insurance payouts and left, for whom the disaster is now years removed. For those us who have remained, the disaster is never far away.
Those images of the change in tree cover are surreal.
It is still shocking to see it from the ground, to be blinded by glare off the reservoir past a barren slope that used to be sugar pine forest, to bike down the old railroad grade and see framing going up three blocks away as the trees and fences and homes inbetween are all gone. The image below the before and after is representative. There is never shade and always wind. Then heading north out of town, you are suddenly back in the Cascades evergreens again.
For all the finger-pointing, this area (outside the fire scar) is a perfectly sustainable place to live. We don't need air conditioning in our shady summers, and we don't need much heating fuel in our rainy winters. We have plenty of water yet will never flood. We sequester several tons of carbon per acre per year while exporting zero-emission electricity. The Camp Fire was not some inevitable consequence of living amid this hospitable abundance; it was sparked by a San Francisco corporation recklessly maximizing profit on the export of our natural resource.
Which reminds me of another California city nearly destroyed by fire, once long ago. They were in a lucrative location, seven miles square by the sea, and were able to rebuild even more housing than they'd had before. Today their economy is thriving, and their housing market makes national headlines. Plenty of folks want to live there despite the lurking disaster under their feet. They just built back wiser so 1989 wasn't another 1906.
Now it should be Paradise's turn. The public roads were nearly destroyed by heavy equipment and are all being rebuilt with underground utilities alongside the new water mains. A new high school opens this fall; the surviving public elementary is all new inside. There is already more new housing than old; by decade's end, it will be 80% or 90% new and up to modern codes, making it the least flammable hilltown in all of California. There are reasons to be hopeful, for the Goodlins to come build a home or the Milbauers to come start a business. And we need their optimism since there will be so much toil along the way.
posted by backwoods at 1:05 AM on May 28, 2022 [9 favorites]
In the California evergreen biome, fire risk is lowest where the forest floor has recently burned while the canopy remains intact. Where the canopy is destroyed, wet winters engender eruptions of brush that no longer has to compete with mature trees for moisture and sunlight. Flammable invasives like broom establish faster than resistant natives like manzanita and buckeye. Properties in and around Paradise that had been tall ponderosa forest are now waist-high thickets of kindling. This small-diameter vegetation burns much hotter than forest litter and poses a threat to nearby homes which has deterred some from rebuilding.
I'm a Chico resident and right now there is a controversy about hooking up Paradise to our sewer system (Paradise is septic)
Quite so. Local context others might miss is that Paradise had been the largest community west of the Mississippi without sanitary sewer. Which derived in part from its haphazard development before incorporation (and before the Map Act put an end to such madness) but also from its topography. Paradise sits on a Quaternary volcanic flow sloping down toward the Central Valley and dissected by drainages. Putting all of the Town on a sewer system would involve a prohibitive amount of pumping, and then there's the matter of where to build a treatment plant and where to discharge the effluent.
While Paradise developed with no local government or planning oversight, quartering lots hither and yon, each new home had its own septic system. Consequently, residents did not want to cover the cost of a technically challenging sewer. Over time, more septics began to fail, and the Town considered sewer for the commercial corridors in 2017. Then the Camp Fire and the heavy equipment removing all the fire debris and contaminated soil destroyed most of the septic systems in town. Along with the federal disaster recovery funding and worldwide attention on Paradise, people in Town government I've talked with believe they can get outside funding to run sanitary sewer down the primary arterials, down the foot of the Ridge, and across to Chico's plant on the Sac River. So far they've gotten funding for the environmental assessment and a lot of pushback from Chico residents concerned that new infrastructure through what is now ag land will promote urban sprawl.
If sewer did come to Paradise, it would enable denser development like townhomes and mid-rises that don't work with septic and which would provide places to live for people who can't afford a new single-family detached. But right now the Town is all individual septics, which means tanks and drainfields and reserve drainfields and their setbacks contribute to the cost of new housing.
your take on the Paradise families vs. science teacher on climate data as described in this TAL segment, if it’s an issue you have thoughts about
tl;dl NPR exhumed a story from early 2019 where a climate reporter found two middle schoolers (in the repurposed Orchard Supply store while Paradise Intermediate was closed due to smoke damage) whose parents were denialists. The star pupil believes the Camp Fire was caused by dangling powerlines, the elephant's tusk, while the reporter believes it was caused by greenhouse gas emissions, the elephant's trunk priming the fuel.
The disaster was caused by all of these things. Warrens of dead-end private roads and same-age monocrop plantations carrying fire into populated areas and bulb-outs on the main arterial (a response to a middle schooler being killed in the crosswalk outside the Boys and Girls Club) all contributed to the death toll. And car culture in general, speaking as someone who evacuated on a bicycle and avoided the traffic jam. Yet the tendency of outside media is to take the aspect they understand from their outside perspective (Hottest summer on record! Roads were too narrow!) as the reference frame for their narrative. While generally portraying us as hayseeds as well.
I have GYOB thoughts about media portrayal of the Camp Fire and find pieces like this one excruciating as they continue to shape the public discourse and legislative landscape that will ultimately get us out of or trap us within our purgatory.
Milbauer said her family came out better off after their own house fire. I have said the lucky ones in the Camp Fire were those who got insurance payouts and left, for whom the disaster is now years removed. For those us who have remained, the disaster is never far away.
Those images of the change in tree cover are surreal.
It is still shocking to see it from the ground, to be blinded by glare off the reservoir past a barren slope that used to be sugar pine forest, to bike down the old railroad grade and see framing going up three blocks away as the trees and fences and homes inbetween are all gone. The image below the before and after is representative. There is never shade and always wind. Then heading north out of town, you are suddenly back in the Cascades evergreens again.
For all the finger-pointing, this area (outside the fire scar) is a perfectly sustainable place to live. We don't need air conditioning in our shady summers, and we don't need much heating fuel in our rainy winters. We have plenty of water yet will never flood. We sequester several tons of carbon per acre per year while exporting zero-emission electricity. The Camp Fire was not some inevitable consequence of living amid this hospitable abundance; it was sparked by a San Francisco corporation recklessly maximizing profit on the export of our natural resource.
Which reminds me of another California city nearly destroyed by fire, once long ago. They were in a lucrative location, seven miles square by the sea, and were able to rebuild even more housing than they'd had before. Today their economy is thriving, and their housing market makes national headlines. Plenty of folks want to live there despite the lurking disaster under their feet. They just built back wiser so 1989 wasn't another 1906.
Now it should be Paradise's turn. The public roads were nearly destroyed by heavy equipment and are all being rebuilt with underground utilities alongside the new water mains. A new high school opens this fall; the surviving public elementary is all new inside. There is already more new housing than old; by decade's end, it will be 80% or 90% new and up to modern codes, making it the least flammable hilltown in all of California. There are reasons to be hopeful, for the Goodlins to come build a home or the Milbauers to come start a business. And we need their optimism since there will be so much toil along the way.
posted by backwoods at 1:05 AM on May 28, 2022 [9 favorites]
Just for the heck of it since it came up in conversation, I asked the aforementioned friend if he was worried about rebuilding/going back to the fire area and he said, "Yes." Said they are trying to clear as much brush as they can out of the area. I don't know how much that helps, exactly?
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:27 AM on May 30, 2022
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:27 AM on May 30, 2022
Clearing brush deprives ground fires of fuel. Forest litter will completely consume before mature trees ignite as long as there is no small-diameter vegetation (ladder fuel) to carry flames up into the branches. Clearing around structures creates "defensible space" that may not halt a fire on its own but allows the fire to be halted, even by residents with shovels and garden hoses when conditions are favorable. Clearing along driveways and roadways protects egress for residents and ingress for firefighters and can help to break continuity and contain fire before it gets too close to a home.
In California, this adds up to Cal Fire willingness to defend a well-prepared home. On Day 5 of the Camp Fire, these yellow signs were posted as firefighters inspected each property and determined which were best suited for structure protection. If the fire had advanced another thousand feet, crews would have given priority to the property they could more effectively defend and from which they could more readily escape.
It also helps us country folk to demonstrate agency, to husband the land, to transform a thicket into a pasture or glade. Fuel reduction may be only a percentage point of difference when conditions are at their worst, but on a good day, it can stop stray smokes from becoming fires at all. The rituals of making things incrementally better help cast off the fear of fire, help us prepare for its return, help us prepare the land for broadcast burns like it was 1847. The greatest hazard in Paradise was nearby homes on fire, which Paradise has to account for as it rebuilds. In the hinterland, we thin the understory, clear the brush, eliminate sources of radiant heat to make this landscape home.
posted by backwoods at 3:07 PM on June 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
In California, this adds up to Cal Fire willingness to defend a well-prepared home. On Day 5 of the Camp Fire, these yellow signs were posted as firefighters inspected each property and determined which were best suited for structure protection. If the fire had advanced another thousand feet, crews would have given priority to the property they could more effectively defend and from which they could more readily escape.
It also helps us country folk to demonstrate agency, to husband the land, to transform a thicket into a pasture or glade. Fuel reduction may be only a percentage point of difference when conditions are at their worst, but on a good day, it can stop stray smokes from becoming fires at all. The rituals of making things incrementally better help cast off the fear of fire, help us prepare for its return, help us prepare the land for broadcast burns like it was 1847. The greatest hazard in Paradise was nearby homes on fire, which Paradise has to account for as it rebuilds. In the hinterland, we thin the understory, clear the brush, eliminate sources of radiant heat to make this landscape home.
posted by backwoods at 3:07 PM on June 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
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