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An American Tragedy
by Alastair Gee, Dani Anguiano
Book Reviewed by:The harrowing story of the most destructive American wildfire in a century.
There is no precedent in postwar American history for the destruction of the town of Paradise, California. On November 8, 2018, the community of 27,000 people was swallowed by the ferocious Camp Fire, which razed virtually every home and killed at least 85 people. The catastrophe seared the American imagination, taking the front page of every major national newspaper and top billing on the news networks. It displaced tens of thousands of people, yielding a refugee crisis that continues to unfold.
Fire in Paradise is a dramatic and moving narrative of the disaster based on hundreds of in-depth interviews with residents, firefighters and police, and scientific experts. Alastair Gee and Dani Anguiano are California-based journalists who have reported on Paradise since the day the fire began. Together they reveal the heroics of the first responders, the miraculous escapes of those who got out of Paradise, and the horrors experienced by those who were trapped. Their accounts are intimate and unforgettable, including the local who left her home on foot as fire approached while her 82-year-old father stayed to battle it; the firefighter who drove into the heart of the inferno in his bulldozer; the police officer who switched on his body camera to record what he thought would be his final moments as the flames closed in; and the mother who, less than 12 hours after giving birth in the local hospital, thought she would die in the chaotic evacuation with her baby in her lap. Gee and Anguiano also explain the science of wildfires, write powerfully about the role of the power company PG&E in the blaze, and describe the poignant efforts to raise Paradise from the ruins.
This is the story of a town at the forefront of a devastating global shift―of a remarkable landscape sucked ever drier of moisture and becoming inhospitable even to trees, now dying in their tens of millions and turning to kindling. It is also the story of a lost community, one that epitomized a provincial, affordable kind of Californian existence that is increasingly unattainable. It is, finally, a story of a new kind of fire behavior that firefighters have never witnessed before and barely know how to handle. What happened in Paradise was unprecedented in America. Yet according to climate scientists and fire experts, it will surely happen again.
While the authors do discuss climate change, they also refuse to allow Paradise's victims and heroes to become symbols or martyrs in such a way that might inadvertently dehumanize them. Their depictions of these individuals are powerful and vivid; we genuinely come to know them. This is a powerful work of narrative nonfiction with a word of warning about the perils we face in a warming world, but it's also an eloquent and heartening illustration of empathy, generosity and hope...continued
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(Reviewed by Lisa Butts).
In Fire in Paradise, authors Alastair Gee and Dani Anguiano capture the devastation wrought by the Camp Fire that destroyed the community of Paradise in California on November 8, 2018. California's hot, dry and windy climate makes it particularly susceptible to wildfires. Climate change has exacerbated these conditions, raising temperatures and making the area more prone to drought, which dries out vegetation, resulting in fires that are more expansive.
A 2019 study appearing in Earth's Future reported that California "experienced a fivefold increase in annual burned area" from wildfires between 1972 and 2018. Thus it is no surprise that the five most destructive wildfires in California history, as reported by the California ...
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Fire in Paradise is the detailed reportage of people suddenly caught in a catastrophe that is spreading worldwide wherever there are forests—uncontrollable wildfire. This is a frightening book that will make readers take stock of their own home surroundings, regional infrastructure, and the values of our times.
