Paradise honors 85 lives lost to 2018 wildfire
PARADISE, Calif. — paused Friday.
One year after the most devastating wildfire in California history mostly destroyed the town, local officials asked people to pause for 85 seconds beginning at 11:08 a.m. — one second for every person who was killed. Hundreds of people packed the parking lot of a former bank building Friday to stop and remember.
It was one of several
Paradise events local officials have planned to commemorate Nov. 8, 2018, when a terrifying blaze blew through the town and prompted a panicked evacuation that forced some people to abandon their cars as the fire closed in on gridlocked roads.
Christina Taft fled that day. But her mother, Victoria, did not and was killed in the fire.
Taft said it’s been a difficult year and she’s had trouble finding housing. She’s living in San Jose with a friend she met after the fire, where she finally found a job and starts Monday.
While Friday’s events will mark that day, Paradise Mayor Jody Jones said she wants the community to “celebrate the progress we’ve made and look to the future and what we can become.”
“We were never lost,” she said.
Paradise Town Councilman Michael Zuccolillo urged the crowd Friday to have hope, noting the sounds of rebuilding have replaced the removal.
“You don’t hear the dump trucks taking out houses out of here,” he said. “You hear the sound of hammers.”
In the year since the fire, crews have removed more than 3.66 million tons of debris — twice the amount that was removed from the World Trade Center site following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Nine homes have been rebuilt, but the town is on track to issue 500 building permits by the end of the year. sounds of debris