Josie!
Mom!
Thank God you’re here. Are you ok?
Yes, yes. Do you have any water? Ava’s gasping.
Oh, poor thing, of course. What took you so long? I know you were evacuating, but it’s usually only an hour fifty to Yuba?
It wasn’t just us leaving. The whole of Paradise was on the move, everyone was ordered out.
How’s Carl? Did you see him? Last time we spoke he wasn’t keen on that opt in alert system you have there.
I didn’t see him, or Julia actually. But Sheriff Honea and his crew were knocking on doors. Ava might need a cold cloth by the way, she almost burnt her hand.
Her hand? How? I thought the fire wasn’t near you?
It was everywhere. Well, by 9am it was. The whole sky was this dark orange, you couldn’t see the sun. That’s when we hit traffic. Everyone was trying to take the Skyway out—
Yes, but they had planned for that, I thought?
They had, but they’d never anticipated the entire town leaving all at once. Anyways, by that point the fire had caught up with us. It was terrifying, really. Crawling along with this blaze around you. I turned the radio up so Ava couldn’t hear the wind and freak, and so I wouldn’t either, to be honest. And the windows were so hot — that’s how Ava hurt herself.
I’ll get a towel. They said on the TV that it was bad, but I didn’t think it would be anything like that.
It gets worse, sorry to tell you. We saw two groups have to abandon their cars ‘cos they’d caught fire. Every building we drove past was on fire — even the mayor’s home.
Well, I did tell you not to move there, you know.
We’ve been through this. And maybe now isn’t the time. It’s the only place we could afford outside Sacramento. I’m a single mother, in case you’d forgotten.
Well It’s cheap for a reason. There’ve been 13 big fires since ’99! How many warnings do you want? Oh, and that power company—
PG&E?
Crooks. Don’t get me started… Speaking of which, have they confirmed that’s how it started?
Yeah, they said on the radio.
I’m not surprised. Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap.
They cut power to our street last night as they were worried about the risk.
And what good did that do? Maybe if they updated their 100-year-old power lines, there’d be less risk then.
I know, I know. The fire started off Camp Creek Road, we should’ve been ok, but the wind picked up, 50mph they’re saying, and that was it.
So anyways, how long you think before you head back home?
I don’t know if home even still exists.
‘Camp Fire’ began on November 12th, 2018, and destroyed 90% of homes in Paradise, California. The fire destroyed more than 18,000 buildings and killed 86 people. The 2010 census recorded a population of 26,800. Today, it’s estimated around 4,000 live there.
Jason Sayer's 'Paradise Lost' was the winning submission in the Design and the Climate and Biodiversity Emergencies category of the Architetcure Foundation's 2022 Writing Prize. The category was judged by Smith Mordak and Martha Dillon and sponsored by the Marchus Trust. The winning entries in all categories will be available to read in a print publication released in early 2023.