It was frightening, and all too familiar. The family had previously been forced to flee as a wildfire bore down on another mountain town they called home: Paradise.
Now, with their path blocked and a horizon swallowed by flames, Kristy had an eerie feeling they were going to lose all they’d fought to build.
“I kind of knew then, like, we’re never coming home again — again, again,” she said.
The Camp fire, the deadliest in California history, devastated Paradise in 2018, consuming thousands of homes, including the Daneaus’.
They relocated to the town of Cohasset, putting them in the direct path of another wildfire, one that has since become the state’s fifth largest on record. Within just six years, the family again found themselves in jeopardy.
The trio eventually made it to safety, trekking seven hours down an unpaved loggers’ road to Chico. But their home in Cohasset was no match for an inferno’s fury.
“We’re starting completely over, again,” said Michael Daneau, 41. Every property they’ve ever owned has “burned to the ground with no value and nothing to our name.”
It’s not like fires in California are a new phenomenon. The first one wasn’t their fault, sure. The second has shown them the risk and frequency of fires in the area they live. If they rebuild there again then yes, the consequences of any more fire damage or loss of property are completely their fault.
It’s not that easy. They don’t have much money, and that’s why they were living where they were. The city nearby where everyone works became too expensive after the Camp Fire (rent has almost doubled) and then COVID. It’s really hard. They would’ve had to start over completely somewhere else without nearby family, friends, or their jobs. It’s just not that simple. Towns burning down is a pretty recent recurrence.
You got a family? You got a big family? Aunts, Uncles, cousins? Do you blame them when a natural disaster destroys their home & they choose to rebuild near their loved ones?
You sure don’t seem very kind if you think it’s ok to blame people for being in the paths of natural disasters.
When you lose your entire life, you tend to want to get some of it back. Staying in the same area, where, you know… you may have friends, family, a church, a school, a community, is one way to lighten that blow.
You sure do like swinging your judgements around like you’ve got this shit figured out.
Tell us, oh wise grand housing wizard, where have you built your un-destroyable, natural disaster proof house? Please, by all means, educate us with your infallible logic!
Lol and you made it into a personal attack. Whatever is going on here is really on you and not the person you just went ad hominem on.
You’re openly blaming people who have lost their homes twice. That’s a pure lack of humanity on your part.
This isn’t personal for me. I’m just calling you on having complete disregard for a person who’s lost everything twice.
You blamed them? Who the hell does that?
Grow up.
Your argument: people should be able to do whatever they want and the consequences are not on them. Any thought that their decision making lead them to this a SECOND time is apparently offensive.
You should probably do some introspection and try to figure out why the opinions of two random people can cause you to rage so hard. This entire discourse is of you projecting your own personal issues. So I will deflect: no, you should grow up.
People have homes, people build communities, people build families. Those things are not easy for some people to live without.
If you have an easy time walking away from those things, especially after you’ve lost everything, twice, then good for you. You truly have the ability only care for yourself & you’ll go far on your own
You can’t reduce human life down to a single decision & if you continue judging everyone so harshly for making a decision you wouldn’t, you’re going to run out of people to judge faster then you’d expect.
Take care of yourself friend. Your black & white outlook on the human decision making capacity is pretty wild. You should write up a paper on it.
Edit: and for the record, my argument was never that people get to do what they want. Of course they don’t.
My argument was & still is, this a far more complicated situation than you’re willing to acknowledge. Additionally, your willingness to shit on those involved from a distance & reduce them to “idiots” tells me every thing I need to know about who you are as a person.
I have never used the word “idiot”, you did. I don’t know if you’re fully in contact with reality at this point.
No, you just blamed someone who has lost their life’s work to tragedy. Twice.
I was just trying to be a bit more civil while rehashing your repeated disgust for strangers.
No, you came out to project your own past traumas on other people.