#CampFire Remembrance Day (1yr Anniversary of #CampFire)
A year ago today the Town Of Paradise burned. 90% of the Town’s population became homeless that day. 85 people burned to death. It burned approximately 219 sq miles, and destroyed nearly 19,000 structures. Most of this damage occurred in 4 hours. Here’s the link to the Paradise Wiki page. My Town Of Magalia also burned. About 25-30% of the dwellings gone. Here’s the link to the Magalia page.
My former home in Paradise burned. The only thing left were some cinder block walls.
My Grandpa’s home is also gone
That day I heard about the fire around 6:30am or so on one of my local Facebook groups, but it was so far away and we are used to fires up here…so I wasn’t too worried. My middle daughter came to tell me about it but I shrugged her off saying “yeah, I know, I’m not worried.” Next, my oldest daughter, who worked at the Feather River Cancer Center, said flames were in the parking lot of the hospital when she left there and suggested I’d better pack up the animals and my stuff…
At that point I began to think maybe this WAS serious so I gathered my clothes and important papers, my animals (1 big dog & 2 cats) their food and my “bugout bag” and loaded up the car. The roads were already clogged with people trying to leave as I attempted to get to my oldest daughter’s house further north in Stirling City. We sat at her house until about 8pm when the word came to evacuate her area too.
Off we all went in a caravan: my daughter, her husband, & their two kids, the husband’s parents leading the way, and me bringing up the rear. It was pitch black and I had to drive with one eye closed because my glasses were making me cross-eyed! By the time we got to Forest Ranch, there were flames almost to our road into Chico! In fact that section of Chico had to evacuate temporarily too!
When we got to a gas station, my daughter put gas in my car & told me there was a shelter opening up in Gridley at the fairgrounds. I spent a week or so there. I made some friends there, one of whom offered to let me & my animals stay at her family home. Lovely people I’m still in touch with to this day.
I was one of the lucky ones but many weren’t so lucky. My heart goes out to them and I hope & pray that our beautiful little Town can rise from the ashes to be a true PARADISE again. Here & there you see signs of hope:
Addendum:
New sign for Magalia Twitter link
Butte Strong sign Twitter link
Paradise Strong Beer Twitter link
As of 11/8/19
- 649 water advisories lifted
- 475 building permits issued
- 12 homes have been rebuilt
- 317 building permits issued
Its ALL Blarney!! 
Hi, Irishgrl. This has nothing to do with this post, but I’ve seen you comment on various Youtube videos about Larry Bird and noticed that there were a couple videos that none of the regular Bird reaction channels have re-posted, and that you hadn’t commented on the original ones. I don’t have a Youtube account (or Facebook or basically anything else) but I thought that somebody ought to compile them and post them so more people would see them. I tried finding ways to contact the various reactors but couldn’t find any with links to e-mails. So I tried your channel since you’ve posted some great videos about Bird, and followed the links to here. I know it sounds a bit weird and stalker-y but they’re such neat videos…
They’re all related to the recent Allstate commercial with Larry Bird and the mayhem guy. You’ve probably seen the ad on tv, either the 30-second version (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrbPVsQB3vw) or the 15-second one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8KGKp191Qc) , but I’m not sure if you’ve seen the very short bit that they seem to have cut from the end of the commercial (https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5nybKDToMdE)
But, most importantly, the one with the trash talking: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/EIdmjAYwerM
I thought perhaps you could either link to them on your channel or forward them to one of the reaction channels and see if they want to react.
Sorry for intruding on your blog…
Hi Leslie, thx for reaching out! I can only suggest them in the comments but i will do that….also, i can try compiling them myself since i think theyd be considered public domain. It’s time consuming & im a newbie at video editing with only the most basic editing app/features….but it’s a great idea so thx for that!
I know I’m a bit slow to add my 2¢ at times but I try! Thx for visiting my channel, i hope you’ll consider subscribing? Im not in it for the money, only the Larry Love lol 🙂
I took your advice, here’s the link: https://youtu.be/MT35ZlJnpxw?si=cH3z5lfPJGqsRmHr
Oh, wonderful! You did a great job. It was funny that a couple of the comments on the original ad were saying “They should do one with trash talking!” The little video with the trash talking doesn’t seem to show up much – I happened across it, and there are only a couple of comments, so I hope more people see it now. I think it’s hilarious!
Maybe one of these days I’ll create a Youtube account, but at the moment I know that if I did I’d spend *way* too much time commenting on things!