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I will never forget a destroyed town burning down to ashes, a devastated and desperate community with hopes to hear good news of their missing loved ones, their animals and their homes. I will never forget skeletons and pumpkins decorations displayed on intact front yards of ghosty streets for the past Halloween … I will never forget a line of vehicles bumper-to-bumper totally charred in a dead-end where a previous night people perished, according to authorities, or that the scene looked like they were trapped in an ambush by the killer fire, a resemble of a war zone, as scattered hot spots and smoke continued moving slowly skywards and dispersing in different directions.
I will never forget that I was working in plain broad light but once I got into ground zero, where hundreds of firefighters from all over California battled the inferno, switched from bright to deep dark because of the huge-and-thick black cloud of smoke blocked the sun rays from entering in what it seems to be another apocalyptic scenario.
I will never forget the Fallons, who decided not to evacuate to save their animals, including 14 horses, dogs and cats. Cathy Fallon and her husband, who was taken to a hospital, lost their home, two dogs, nine cats, and later a horse. Shiloh, one of their surviving dogs, suffered lots of burns on its face and eyes. The photos went viral after we posted in social media and eventually they got help. Oh, and I won’t forget how Cathy hugged me and cried on my shoulder thanking me for being there and let her use my cell phone to let her sister she is alive and find out the whereabouts of her daughter, who lost her home but fortunately evacuated Paradise.
Ray Chavez is a photographer with the Bay Area News Group
