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Housing costs were way lower when most of the homes on the ridge were built in the 1950s and 1960s. They acknowledge that the new construction is pricing some people out. Town leaders like to say that they're now existing in the largest construction site in the world. "Our perspective is we feel really good about the pace of this recovery." "We actually hear a lot from people outside of the community, saying, 'Wow, this is taking a really long time,'" says Colette Curtis, recovery coordinator for the Town of Paradise.
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Town leaders tried to account for the rising costs by streamlining permitting, even offering preapproved fire-wise design plans. Now, it's averaging 600, even with much tougher zoning. Paradise is now one of the largest construction sites in the worldīefore the Camp Fire, Paradise typically saw about a dozen new homes built in any given year.
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"We're building a resilient town that the people here care a lot about," Jones says. Paradise's former Mayor Jody Jones says Paradise is becoming one of the safest towns in California. And main thoroughfares are clogged with construction traffic.Īll the new homes have to meet tougher wildfire codes, including a new local ordinance that bans any porches or other fixtures built from combustible materials in the immediate perimeter of houses. Utility crews are digging trenches and burying all the new power lines underground. Roads are being newly paved or reconfigured and blocked by flaggers. One million trees have been removed the coastal range to the west and Sawmill Peak and the Sierra foothills to the east are now visible. Originally built out into dense forests, Paradise today is a changed land. One of the biggest changes since the fire that locals remark on nearly constantly are the views. Paradise locals say what they've accomplished so far is a miracle "I don't think it's up to the Paradises of California to provide the affordable housing anymore," Miller says.
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His family lived there because they could afford to. His brother, sister and mother narrowly survived evacuating on Nov. Then as the months dragged on, the scope of what was ahead began to settle in. They soon became frustrated, angry about the slow pace of even just removing the fire debris. In the weeks and months immediately after the Camp Fire, survivors were anxious to get home. "It's a slow process either way because when you're starting from scratch, you can only do what you can do at that moment and work forward," Foudray says. She's grateful to have found steadier work in the meantime as a home services aid. She can stay with family if her pipes freeze, as they did earlier this year. In the 1950s and 1960s it was marketed as a "place in the pines" for retirees from the Bay Area, about a three-hour drive to the south.įoudray is planning to stay in her camper this winter as much as she can. It also became dangerously overgrown with dense stands of pines and underbrush, in part due to loose zoning and prior forest management decisions. Paradise had been an island of relative affordability in expensive California. Paradise was affordable but that's inevitably changing Now, it's estimated that it's roughly a third of its pre-fire population.ĭepending on who you ask, it's a monumental feat considering 90% of the town was leveled, or it's an example of how a recovery from a major disaster can be prolonged and painfully slow despite billions in federal and state aid. The slow and expensive recovery that continues today in Paradise could be a lesson for survivors in Lahaina, not to mention scores of other recent wildland fire disasters on the mainland like Marshall Canyon, Colo., and near Las Vegas, N.M.īefore the Camp Fire, which was ignited by downed powerlines in the National Forest lands northeast of town, about 26,000 people lived in Paradise. "I mean, we didn't have to jump in the ocean, but trying to get off this mountain was really difficult during the fire." Five years later only a third of Paradise has repopulatedĪs Paradise marks five years since one of the worst wildfires in American history - only the blazes on Maui last August were deadlier - many in the rural Northern California region are still coping with trauma and struggling to recover. "My heart goes out to people in Hawaii right now because we can totally relate to that," Foudray says. But Foudray's family home, a two-bedroom two-bath mobile, was a total loss.įive years later, she's still mostly living in an RV on her burned-out lot, hoping to get a new home within the next year.