I’m not particularly good at remembering dates but I’ll never forget November 8, 2018.
It was early in the morning that I could see what looked like an ominous, dark cloud coming from the east. The phone rang and it was my then 92-year-old mother who was living in Paradise at the Feather Canyon Independent Living facility, next to the hospital on Pentz Road. She requested that I come up and pick her up.
At the time, I only had a very high, 4-wheel drive truck that would require a step ladder or a crate for her to be able to get in it. A friend offered to let me borrow his car to go rescue my mother.
As I was driving up to Paradise, I could see countless cars coming down from Paradise, heading toward Chico. I seemed to be the only one driving up to Paradise. I was about a mile from my mother when I was forced to turn around. But I really couldn’t go anywhere because the traffic was backed up, bumper to bumper. I was able to call the friend that loaned me his car and he told me to abandon it if I needed to.
When the firestorm reached me, I heard propane tanks exploding and saw sparks flying that were traveling at apparently 55 miles per hour. I couldn’t even touch the windows because they were so hot. So, I parked the car on the side of the road, and began to run. People were offering rides to me but I was at least moving while they weren’t. I soon realized that I couldn’t run all the way to Chico so I finely accepted a ride from a nice young lady. Her only request was to hold one of her two cats on my lap. It took about three hours to get to Chico traveling via Neal Road and Highway 99.
When I got home, some friends of ours were there. They fled their homes as they were on fire. We sat down and had some dinner. About an hour or so later, the police showed up at our door and told us to evacuate immediately. Our neighbors across the street said they could see the fire advancing toward our neighborhood, so we all high tailed it out of there as soon as we could. Our friends were able to find a motel room in Redding. We called another friend in Chico and asked if we could spend a night or two with him. He said sure.
I couldn’t sleep so I left our friend’s house and went back to our home to see if it had survived. I heard that a fire fighter, who lived somewhere in the neighborhood, was able to get his crew to start a backfire to stop the forward progression of the fire.
As it turned out, my mother was able to escape to Oroville in some vans brought in by the senior facility. One of my brothers was able to pick her up. I was able to find her a room in another senior facility here in Chico. It was the last room they had left, too.
Whenever the winds pick up, or I read about other communities dealing with wildfires, I get a little PTSD.
