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Some found devastation, some found miracles.
Authorities on Sunday afternoon began allowing some residents to return for the first time to the destruction zone of the Camp Fire, and though many had already seen pictures taken by emergency workers and knew whether their homes had made it or not, the scenes that greeted them came as a shock.
“It is profoundly gone,” said Robin Wilson, 34, who, along with her husband, Logan, and three sons, dug with shovels through the rubble of their 4,700-square-foot home perched on the edge of Butte Creek Canyon just west of the destroyed town of Paradise.
“Maybe there’s a sense of finality for me,” Robin said. “It just solidifies that this is just stuff.”
By Sunday night, the fire’s historic death toll had risen to 77 after authorities discovered the remains of one body in Butte Creek Canyon, said Butte County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Miranda Bowersox. The number of people missing did fall, however, with 993 people unaccounted for, down from 1,276 people reported missing Saturday.
The most destructive in California’s history, the wildfire has burned nearly 150,000 acres, destroyed some 9,700 structures and forced tens of thousands from their homes. It was 60 percent contained Sunday.
After the catastrophic blaze started Nov. 8, the flames began tearing down the canyon toward the Wilsons’ house while the kids were in school in Chico and Robin was in class at Sacramento State. Logan, at home, grabbed some keepsakes and the family’s two dogs.
On Sunday, he walked over the remains of the house he had fled. “It’s so flat,” Logan said. “I was expecting more of a mound.”
Only a brick fireplace and the remnants of a stone wall that had fronted the house were still standing, albeit crookedly. Every few minutes, one of the kids — Jaxon, 6, Hunter, 8, and Cason, 10 — would hold up a new find: Logan’s trumpet from high school, a set of hatchets given to the boys by grandparents to match the one Logan had as a child, beach glass the children had found on a family trip to Fort Bragg. The Wilsons even found a stone engraved with the name of their fourth son, Caleb, who died soon after birth.
As happy as they were to discover treasures among the ashes and crumbled drywall, setting foot in the wreckage drove home a deep truth for Robin. She pointed toward the boys. “What I have that matters is right there.”
About a quarter of the 30 or so homes in their neighborhood burned to the ground.
Across the street from two destroyed houses, Brian McGovern had just arrived at his three-story home. His two backyard palm trees were scorched but the residence was untouched. “I have no idea how it made it,” said McGovern, a vice-president of a Seattle-based chocolate company, with a wife and sons aged 13 and 17. “It’s unbelievable.”
The gratitude he felt for their home’s narrow escape was tempered by the loss experienced by friends across the street. “We’re fortunate we have some place to go back to,” he said, adding that no one in the neighborhood was killed by the deadly fire.
McGovern, 49, had been monitoring social media and authorities’ websites, and as soon as the evacuation order for his neighborhood was lifted, he drove up. The landscaping around the stucco house probably had helped save it, McGovern said, but he believes the work of firefighters must have made the difference.
A short way down the road, Barbara Maher stood looking down over her home. Like the Wilsons’, it was built on the edge of the canyon. Her home, however, survived unscathed. “It’s a huge relief,” said Maher, 61. “I’ve got birds at my bird feeders. I’ve got tomato plants with tomatoes on them. I’m amazed. I don’t know what the firefighters did, but they did an amazing job. We’re totally blessed.”
She was at home and her husband was away when the fire approached. “I could hear it rumbling,” said Maher, a lab worker at Enloe Medical Center in Chico. “It was like this living thing.” She had already used sprinklers to wet the roof, and the home — with a well-cleared space around it that satisfied Cal Fire inspectors who came through the neighborhood in May — featured water cannons in the front. Before she fled, she shut all the windows, and she left the cannons on.
Many of the deaths and a great deal of destruction from the fire occurred in Paradise. To help evacuated residents cope with their losses, the Faith Lutheran Church in Chico on Sunday welcomed the pastor and congregants from the Lutheran church in Paradise, which survived but remains in an evacuation zone.
“Emotional and spiritual care is one of the most important parts of disaster recovery,” said Carol Roberts, CEO of Lutheran Social Services of Northern California, attending the service. Two Paradise Lutheran parishioners are missing, and about half lost their homes, said pastor Rod Platte.
Paradise parishioners Greg and Nicole Weddig, and daughter Eleanor, 8, lost their home, and attended the service. Greg said he found it comforting to see Platte joining Faith Lutheran pastor Ben Colahan for the service. But what helped most was seeing Eleanor playing with other children in the church, “being a kid, being normal,” he said.
Platte, speaking after the service, looked with hope toward the future of his devastated community. “We’re going to rise out of the ashes,” Platte said. “There will be a new Paradise.”
Other evacuees, camped by Walmart in Chico, were looking toward the future with more worry than hope. Every night, temperatures dip into the 30s. Rain is forecast for midweek.
But despite efforts to get the campers indoors, many are refusing to leave the parking lot and adjacent field that has become a de facto distribution center for food, clothing and other resources — even as those resources are shifting to other locations.
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“With my stressors, it’d be difficult to move,” said former Paradise resident Hope Hood, 62. “It’s too far out. If I didn’t know anybody …”
Hood trailed off, clutching her 11-year-old chihuahua, Maggie, “I’d rather sleep in my car,” she said.
It’s not always easy to convince people to leave, said Abraham Mosher, a Chico resident who’s been volunteering at the parking lot since shortly after the fire sent people fleeing from their homes. Many were turned off from the shelters after hearing reports of norovirus sickening people who stayed at one, he said.
Others didn’t want to travel to the Butte County Fairgrounds in Gridley, a half-hour drive from Chico. And many who remain in the lot were living paycheck to paycheck before the fire, Mosher said.
“It’s tough. It’s kind of like pulling teeth,” he said. “A lot of them are at the bottom of the social demographic. They’re a little more rebellious. They’re independent. So that’s why they’re cool here.”
Volunteers plan to provide ongoing support to camp residents as they continue to search for permanent shelter, said Casey Gibbs, a Magalia resident whose home was lost in the blaze.
Chico Enterprise-Record staff writer Bianca Quilantan contributed to this report.