Survivors of California’s deadliest wildfire haunted as new blaze nears: ‘I can’t do it again’

Stacey Hoffman has barely slept the past week, as the Dixie Fire edged closer to her new home in Chester, Calif. She spent nights by the window, haunted by her hellish escape from the 2018 fire that razed thousands of houses, killed at least 85 people and destroyed her community of Paradise in 2018.

She left briefly — for a motel in Paradise, where she thought she might be safer. But work quickly brought Hoffman back to Chester, she said. She sobbed the whole ride home.

“I didn’t want to have to run for my life again,” the 39-year-old said Tuesday, as the Dixie Fire burned across the lake from her town. “I can’t do it again.”

Dozens of families forced from Paradise and surrounding communities about three years ago have resettled in small towns around Lake Almanor, about 40 miles away, finding comfort in stunning wilderness and shared pain among survivors. But as California’s biggest blaze of the year raged toward that haven this week, they relived a nightmare. Their repeat trauma underscores wildfires’ growing, climate change-fueled threat in the West.

“We accepted that it could burn again,” Jack Montgomery said of his house in the woods near Chester, a lakeside community of little more than 2,000 that reminded him and his wife of Paradise before the fire. “We just never thought it’d be this soon.”

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Forced from Paradise: Life after one of California's deadliest wildfires

Holly Ratliff, a single mother of three, fought to stay in the town she grew up in even if it meant that on some nights she did not know where she would sleep. (Alice Li, Whitney Leaming/The Washington Post)

This time, former residents of Paradise said they were prepared. Stifling smoke, bright orange skies and fears of another displacement kindled dread. Awful, precise memories of the Camp Fire flooded back: A smell like burned chicken. Propane tanks exploding around people like gunfire as gridlocked traffic inched away from a disaster that caught Paradise off guard.

With evacuation orders still limited, each family has its own calculus about whether and when to leave. Some people fled early to avoid bad air. For one couple, echoes of the Camp Fire became unbearable when embers the size of quarters rained down. Others are not budging, hoping an army of firefighters, the lake and better luck will keep them safe.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/07/28/dixie-fire-paradise-lake-almador/