One of the deadliest wildfires in US history, the Paradise fire of 2018, has left nothing to Californians. No remnants, only lost memories. It's been nine months since the fire and residents of Paradise are still trying to pick up the pieces of their lives from the tragedy.
But what exactly led this disaster to befall Paradise? Mark Arax of California Sunday investigates and digs deeper on the matter to see the root cause of the fire.
With the reportorial skill and knack for narrative that Arax is known for, and the deep knowledge of a native, he looks beyond the tragic panorama of Paradise lost to identify the forces that put thousands of people at risk, and he finds a constellation of factors that other journalists have so far failed to connect:
the history of fire suppression and forest mismanagement in the Sierra foothills; political corruption; governmental negligence and rampant urban growth; a flawed relationship with the land beneath our feet; and PG&E’s corrupt “culture of arrogance.”
Read the full piece on California Sunday. -via Longreads
(Image credit: Wikimedia Commons)
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People want electricity, but now it's become apparent there is risk of fire that comes with it. My brother's house in Santa Rosa, CA burned down in the Tubbs firestorm caused by high winds downing power lines. Sure, the risk can be handled better. At some point it's just not cost effective and with climate change we may as well consider fire as part of major weather events.
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