Paradise: One Town's Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire

By Lizzie Johnson

Book Overview

A cautionary tale for a new era of megafires, Paradise is the gripping true story of a town wiped off the map and the determination of its people to rise again.

The inspiration for the Apple Original Film The Lost Bus, starring Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrera

"A tour de force story of wildfire and a terrifying look at what lies ahead."--San Francisco Chronicle (Best Books of the Year)

On November 8, 2018, the people of Paradise, California, awoke to a mottled gray sky and gusty winds. Soon the Camp Fire was upon them, gobbling an acre a second. Less than two hours after the fire ignited, the town was engulfed in flames, the residents trapped in their homes and cars. By the next morning, eighty-five people were dead.

As a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, Lizzie Johnson was there as the town of Paradise burned. She saw the smoldering rubble of a historic covered bridge and the beloved Black Bear Diner and she stayed long afterward, visiting shelters, hotels, and makeshift camps. Drawing on years of on-the-ground reporting and reams of public records, including 911 calls and testimony from a grand jury investigation, Johnson provides a minute-by-minute account of the Camp Fire, following residents and first responders as they fight to save themselves and their town. We see a young mother fleeing with her newborn; a school bus full of children in search of an escape route; and a group of paramedics, patients, and nurses trapped in a cul-de-sac, fending off the fire with rakes and hoses.

In Paradise, Johnson documents the unfolding tragedy with empathy and nuance. But she also investigates the root causes, from runaway climate change to a deeply flawed alert system to Pacific Gas and Electric's decades-long neglect of critical infrastructure. The definitive firsthand account of the nation's deadliest wildfire in a century, Paradise is a riveting examination of what went wrong and how to avert future tragedies.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0593136403
• ISBN13: 9780593136409
• Release Date: August 2022
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.0" x 7.6"

Customer Reviews

Preventable

PARADISE by Lizzie Johnson This is the history of the town of Paradise, California, and some of the histories of its early settlers and modern inhabitants. As we all know, the town of Paradise was devastated by the CAMP FIRE in 2018. Paradise was a thriving town before the fire and now it is a struggling area. The book tells more personable details about some of the people who lived there and how the fire and evacuation impacted their lives. It is disheartening because the fire was found to be caused by a faulty PG&E line. This could have been prevented. 85 people lost their lives in this fire. I wanted to read the story of Paradise since I have family that is from there and other family members that live in the same county of Butte. I thought it good to be educated on the strife and struggles of the residents that had endured the heartbreak of the CAMP FIRE. Many thanks to #netgalley for the complimentary copy of #paradise I was under no obligation to post a review.