As the biggest fire of the season raged through northern California on Saturday, Stephen Murray wasn’t taking any chances.
The Paradise resident loaded up his vehicle and prepared to flee with his wife and children. Almost six years after the Camp fire destroyed his hometown and killed 85 people, the community was under an evacuation warning due to the Park fire, which had scorched nearly 350,000 acres.
“It’s got us all riled up,” said Murray, who became a local hero after he helped evacuate a mobile home park during the 2018 fire.
“Last night laying my head down, I remember people died the day of the fire because they went to bed and never woke up so I went to bed with nightmares. The PTSD is horrible.”
Officials put the entire town under an evacuation warning because of the threat of the Park fire. The blaze started on Wednesday in nearby Chico, a college town of 110,000 people, when a man who has since been arrested allegedly sent his burning car down down an embankment in the city’s Upper Bidwell Park.
Amid hot and windy conditions, the fire exploded, consuming miles and miles of tinder-dry vegetation and homes in rural foothill communities. In just three days, the fire has grown to nearly 350,000 acres (141,640 hectares) with no containment as the flames have repeatedly jumped over containment lines.
The California department of forestry and fire protection (Cal Fire) reported Saturday morning that 134 structures had been destroyed – primarily in Cohasset, a town of fewer than 400 people in Butte county – while 4,200 buildings are still under threat and nearly 2,500 firefighting personnel are battling the fire. The blaze moved so quickly that many residents in Cohasset were forced to shelter in place, and authorities looked at calling in the national guard to help perform rescues.