California man witnesses house burnt down for second time

Rick Pero was working in southern Mexico when evacuation alerts started ringing on his phone.

A wildfire threatens his California community. again.

Back home, some 2,800 miles (4,500 kilometers) away, a man pushed a burning car into a dry, grassy ravine at a popular swimming hole. Almost immediately, the area was on fire and those enjoying the summer began to panic. The flames spread rapidly through dry brush about 15 miles (24 kilometers) from Mr Perot’s home.

“Uh-oh, this doesn’t look good,” Mr. Perot thought as he watched the fire spread through his phone.

Within hours, the Park Fire burned more than 6,000 acres and forced residents in the area to evacuate. The arson suspect they were with mingled with the worried crowd and fled the area, police said.

Mr. Perot was packing his bags while staring at his phone. He told his cat sitter to take his two cats and leave before it was too late. He learned the dangers in 2018 after surviving the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history, which leveled the town of Paradise and claimed 85 lives. His home was burned down.

Mr. Perot rebuilt his life in Forest Ranch, another small community about 9 miles (14 kilometers) north of Paradise. He thinks he’s safe – his new Silver Linings Home has stunning views and better fire protection. But a fire once again destroyed his home and everything inside – and possibly stole one of his cats that couldn’t be lured out of the house.

The metal casings of both cars were warped and left where his garage once was. Pieces of charred metal were stacked in piles. The foundation of the house is no longer visible, but there are stacks of bricks that look like a fireplace. A colorful sunset view of the woods behind his home now features hundreds of charred but still smoking pine trees.

“The biggest sadness is that our neighbors are very close-knit,” he said. “Again, I’m very, very grateful that they were able to save all of my neighbors, almost all of my neighbors’ houses.”

Wildfires are becoming more intense and more frequent.

The Park Fire started in a park in Chico on July 24 and spread to more than 71,000 acres in just 24 hours. It was the fourth largest wildfire in California history, burning more than 400,000 acres, and like Paradise, it spread incredibly quickly.

About 12 hours after the fire, authorities said the person responsible was arrested. Police said Ronnie Dean Stout II was spotted setting fire and mingling with the crowd, and people fled. Witnesses said he was acting strangely and may have been drunk.

Authorities found him at a nearby mobile home park and charged him with arson. He has not yet entered a plea, but reportedly told authorities it was an accident when his burning car rolled down a 60-foot embankment. Butte County District Attorney Michael Ramsey said he later fled the area out of fear.

The fires burned through four counties and scorched an area larger than greater Los Angeles or London. Although much of the land is uninhabited, hundreds of homes have been destroyed in the fires, which experts fear may take months to fully extinguish.

The area is a frequent target of destructive wildfires. Cal Fire Incident Commander Billy See said at a news conference that Northern California is home to “four of the 10 largest fires in the state’s history.”

Eight of the 10 largest wildfires in California history have occurred in the past five years. Scientists say the impacts of wildfires and other extreme weather events are becoming more severe because of climate change. There is no doubt that this new fire will reignite the debate about how we live and rebuild in the increasingly hot and dry American West.

Mr. Perot last evacuated in 2018, when he and his wife were at home in Paradise. They had just 20 minutes to escape – but that was enough to take their photo album, cell phone, computer, car and cat.

The fire swept through Paradise with unprecedented speed and heat, and its ferocity caught everyone off guard. Many of the 85 victims died in their cars as they tried to escape on windy mountain roads in the rural town.

Paradise Police Sergeant Rob Nichols was one of the many quick-thinking heroes of the day. Propane tanks exploded and power lines and burned-out cars blocked roads as fires engulfed towns. His wife and young children escaped safely, but Sergeant Nichols stayed to help.

Together with firefighters and volunteers, they smashed the windows of an empty building with a large parking lot – a barrier that prevents the building from burning – and pushed about 200 people inside , they watched in horror as their beloved mountain city was burned to the ground. Sergeant Nichols lost everything he owned.

He still works in Paradise but has settled with his family in Chico, about a mile from where the park fire occurred. Chico is where many Paradise evacuees headed in 2018 — many sleeping in tents or campers around Walmart until they could resettle elsewhere.

Sergeant Nichols was vacationing on Lake Siskiyou, 135 miles (217 kilometers) away, when he began hearing news of wildfires threatening his home. again.

“On our last night there, we couldn’t rest, not knowing what was going on or how close it was to home,” he said. “So we went home.”

Sergeant Nichols didn’t anticipate how terrifying it would be for his 12- and 13-year-old children, who returned home to see flames taking over an area on a ridge above their community.

“That’s a big trigger for them,” he said.

Fortunately, their house survived the damage. The wind blows the flames in the opposite direction.

But it’s close. He sometimes considers moving to an area less prone to fires.

“My wife has a lot of family here,” he said, noting the ties that keep them in the area. “And, you know, we lost seven homes. Her family lost seven homes in the Camp Fire. So we didn’t want to go too far.

He believes that heaven may be safer than most places now because there is nothing left to burn. He wanted to rebuild there, but construction costs had soared due to wildfires and insurance costs were prohibitive.

Now, Sergeant Nichols is patrolling Chico — on loan from the Paradise Police Department — to help deter looters or opportunists from trying to attack the community after a dispersal order.

Mr. Perrault viewed his Forest Ranch house as a haven away from home because of its natural beauty and the close relationship he and his wife had with the community they grew to love.

He began taking fire safety seriously, even becoming obsessed with it, and took charge of the neighborhood’s fire prevention efforts. He said it was “ironic” that his home burned down. With about 50 yards of clearing space behind his house, he hopes the barrier will stop any potential fires from continuing to spread to his oasis.

“It has a 60,000-gallon water tank. There are fire hydrants down the street,” he said. “The bottom line is, it only takes a minute to evacuate along Highway 32, compared to nine hours in Paradise.

Every year, they bring in hundreds of goats to clear the brush, which is like any fire that lights the entire community. He urged neighbors to prune trees and clear brush to make their homes fire-proof.

He hopes his lost cat, a gray and black striped cat named CatMandu, will come back alive. Mr. Perrault had been leaving food behind and searching for him around the wreckage.

But the charred remains of his home were still too toxic to move around – he needed special masks and protective clothing to look for signs of the cat or anything that had survived the blaze.

“I try to look from the edge,” he said. “Didn’t see anything.”

Three other houses on his street were also burned. He said they were owned by survivors of the Paradise fire.

He and his wife enjoyed their time at Forest Ranch. But he doubts they will rebuild there. He said he didn’t know if they could start over in such a fire-prone area. They were thinking maybe somewhere along the coast – somewhere near the water. Not too dry place. A safer place.

He knew people who had relocated to rainy Oregon and often-rainy Ireland.

“We’re kind of opening up now.”