Camp Fire claims 86th life as burned man’s lungs fail
The deadliest wildfire in California history has claimed ts 86th victim, 72yearold Paul Ernest, nine months after it destroyed the Butte County town of Paradise and sent thousands fleeing for their lives.
Jessee Ernest confirmed Wednesday that his father died Monday of complications from burns suffered when he and his wife, Suzie Ernest, fled the Camp Fire on Nov. 8.
“He’s a hero,” his son said. “He saved my mom’s life — and almost his own.”
On the day of the fire, the couple heard the inferno before they saw it bearing down on their neighborhood on the
edge of the wilderness.
Paul and Suzie Ernest and a neighbor, Travis Wright, jumped onto their allterrain vehicles and drove south, according to a Chronicle account of the tragedy.
They were aiming for a bluff about 2 miles away where they expected to find shelter because there was little to burn there. But fallen power lines and abandoned vehicles blocked their way, Jessee Ernest said.
Trapped, his parents climbed behind a boulder. Wright leaped through a wall of flames into an area that had just been burned, but the couple was stuck.
Paul Ernest covered his wife with his body, according to The Chronicle report.
Ernest told his wife, “This is gonna be a bad one.”
The Ernests were badly burned, Wright less so. When the fire moved on, he checked that the couple were alive and called 911 — but there was no service. Wright drove for help.
He returned with paramedics, and their journey began with a fire truck, then an ambulance, and finally a helicopter that carried them to UC Davis Hospital.
Suzie Ernest, 68, a kindergarten teacher in Paradise for some 30 years, is learning to walk again. She’s moved to an apartment in Chico and is doing well, her son said.
Paul Ernest — a building contractor, former Navy man and outdoorsman — had a rougher time. With his lungs severely damaged, he needed a machine to breathe.
The change was torturous for a man so full of life, who had walked miles at a time to explore caves and waterfalls, said Jessee Ernest, 41.
“Everybody loved him,” he said. “He was very outgoing and loved to talk.”
His dad also loved to travel, taking his wife, daughter and two sons to Italy and Hawaii.
“He always supported us in everything,” Jessee Ernest said. “They sent us to college. I played music in a rock band, and he always wanted to go see us play. He wanted to be where we were.”
Then, in a flash, the fire stole that. The ventilator prevented Paul Ernest from talking. He could recognize his family, read their lips and even laugh and smile. But being in an intensive care unit, though lifesaving, had robbed his father of his sense of self, Jessee Ernest said.
In May, Paul Ernest moved into a Folsom hospital that specializes in weaning people off of ventilators. It didn’t happen.
Later, he was transferred to a rehabilitation center in West Sacramento.
On Monday, almost nine months to the day after Paul Ernest confronted the Camp Fire and sheltered his wife from the worst of it, his lungs ceased to function.
His heroism, Jessee Ernest said, “was not out of the ordinary for him.”
In addition to his wife and son, Paul Ernest is survived by his daughter, Arielle Sunk, 39, of Chico, and son Jake Ernest, 37, of Carlsbad (San Diego County).