Camp Fire Survivors

Even This Will Not Beat Me

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Update, remembrance & what fellow survivors taught me about enduring

If you’re like me, 2020 feels like a hammer smashing a marble.

I know we’re supposed to talk about rising up, being strong, overcoming, stiff upper lipping our way through it and all of those intentions are valuable.

But… Jesus Christ. I mean… Jesus Christ what an era.

This posting is meant as a reflection on the two-year anniversary of the Camp Fire, as an update on our project Three Days in Paradise and as a personal update for all of you who have become friends through these years. It’s also an update on the bright, if bittersweet, days, months and years to come.

Personal Updates

I’ll admit, most of the traumatic after effects of the Camp Fire did not come home to me fully until this year. In the aftermath of the fire it became my ambition, along with my producing partners Laura Smith and Jenna Lane, to tell the story of our town, our history, our people like only those who lived here and held it close.

That work through 2019 allowed me to forestall most of the trauma I saw in our fellow survivors. Working on Three Days in Paradise kept me busy. It’s my ambition to tell such a deep, era-spanning story of what the fire meant to us all that my work dovetailed with a lot of other meaningful projects.

I was lucky enough to make on a very meaningful project, the Emmy-Nominated A High and Awful Price: Lessons Learned from the Camp Fire. I was able to be a field producer on Ron Howard, Xan Parker and Lizz Morhaim’s Rebuilding Paradise, and go to the Sundance Film Festival. As a filmmaker, it’s quite an experience and one I never thought I would have when I settled in Paradise. (It’s premiering on the National Geographic Channel this Sunday at 9 PM).

When I got home in February, I was planning to make several trips around the country to gather the funding and support to make Three Days exactly the kind of high quality, modern, meaningful production our story deserves.

My travel was to begin in late March or early April. Plans personal, career and professional were cancelled. I was forced to stop and think.

I fell apart.

I won’t go deeply into it here because I’m sure my struggles rhyme with your own. Since the fire I came down with an illness that has left half my face partially paralyzed. My boys have had more taken from them than I think I’ll ever know. I’m proud of the men they’ve become, but I can still see the tremors of anger, nostalgia and sadness in quiet moments when they think of their childhood in Paradise. And my ex-wife was rushed into emergency surgery and had a close call.

And that. When the fire happened, we were married and now for a constellation of reasons we are not. While we parted as friends, this was once one of my greatest fears and another one of the things I wonder would be different if it weren’t for the fire.

But we will never feel another day when the influence of November 8, 2018 does not touch us. So we soldier on. In the past months and weeks I’ve risen from my knees and am getting back to work. About that…

Documentary Updates

While the arrival of Covid-19 has scrambled the lives of everyone, it has done a real number of the film and TV industry. My friends in the industry tell me it’s likely movie theaters will never return to be what they once were. That is not to say anything changes for producing Three Days in Paradise (not a thing in this world or the next will stop me from working on it until it’s finished and worthy), it’s just that the media landscape has changed. We are changing with it, to make sure our story still gets out.

In many ways, that has made the production more challenging… the tastes of streaming and distribution companies have changed. But almost uniquely the events of 2020, with fire in Australia and here in California, the burdens of a pandemic touching everyone on the planet, has made our story of loss and rebirth resonant to almost every other human on Earth in a new way.

One way is we will be producing a podcast with award-winning KCBS Radio reporter Jenna Lane. It will be a kind of sister project to compliment the documentary series. More details on that to come.

Another is that we are going to be going back out into the field for more interviews, more updates, more stories that have cropped up as we have rebuilt. Our ambition is to tell the story of our people from long before the fire to long after. To take all our pain and love and experience and make something meaningful that will be ours, and last long after we are gone.

Our story is not unique. Overcoming is our essential human nature. And no one can tell that story to a world that needs to hear it better than us.

Helping the Gold Nugget Museum and Three Days in Paradise

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Hey friends, neighbors and readers,

We come today with the happy announcement long in the making: Our Three Days in Paradise production team has entered into an agreement with the Gold Nugget Museum to donate all materials contributed by the public to our production to the Museum poste haste.

That means anything you give to us to use in our series, to tell the local and larger stories of the Paradise Ridge and the Camp Fire, will find a home in the Gold Nugget. We’re proud and touched to be allowed to help in this small way to rebuild an institution that means so much to our Ridge.

We’re looking to do two things: 1). Help rebuild the historical images of the Ridge from the 1840s to November 7, 2018 and 2). Create the most complete, fully sourced archive of Camp Fire related images, video, audio and more.

That means we’re looking for everything: Phone videos, home videos, historical pictures, Polaroids, modern phone pics, Beta Tapes, VHS tapes, slides, news station footage & 8 mm films… Everything.

We will scan or digitize you originals and get them back to you. We will then pass on museum quality digital copies to the Museum for their archives.

We came to this decision when we realized the needs to make our series… historical images and what we all saw and heard on November 8 and in the aftermath, matched neatly with what the Museum would be needing for the future.

There are a few ways to get us footage.

1). If you’ve got physical images or material… video or audio tapes, home movies, old pictures, anything, give us a call (530-680-7125) or email and we’ll set up an appointment (Info@ThreeDaysInParadise.tv).

2). Get on our computer and go to this link and send us material via DropBox. When asked, enter your name and email (this will tag each video you upload with your name so we know who contributed it). Only we will see the video you send. Here’s the link:
https://www.dropbox.com/request/XoKYqh7YQe5IHhPx1qPF

3). If you’re on an iPhone, select the photos and send us an iCloud link. You can send the link here: Info@ThreeDaysInParadise.tv

4). If you’ve got an Android, select the photos and send us Google Photos link here: Info@ThreeDaysInParadise.tv
Or…

Help Ron Howard Tell Our Story

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Hey all,

Apologies for the delay/working diligently/update coming soon.

Today I’m here for a quick favor.

Since the Camp Fire, we’ve all encountered film and video producers of all types. Some have come to use us to tell their story. Others are truly here to help us tell ours.

I’ve come to know and trust the crew from Imagine, headed by producer Xan Parker and co-producer Lizz Morhaim for director Ron Howard. They are good people. But if you’ve been lucky enough to meet them, as hundreds of us on the Ridge have, you don’t need me to tell you that.

So here’s the deal. To tell our story in documentary form, they need images. So many of you have helped my project, so let’s help them. Without pictures, video, film and sound, telling our story will be tough. So please join me in helping them.

They need our help to find video (cell phone or other) and photos. If you have anything on the list below, please reach out to me, or upload your material to Dropbox: http://bit.ly/ParadiseDocSubmission
Home movies shot in Paradise – 2000s or before
Gold Nugget Days – 2018 or before
November 8 (Evacuation and down in Chico that night)
November 9 (wherever you were)
November 11 meeting with PG&E
November 28 community meeting
Your first time going back to Paradise after the fire
November 17 visit by President Trump in Paradise
February 14 visit by Governor Newsom in Paradise
These are good people. Helping them helps us.

The Surprises Guests at Paradise High School’s 2019 Prom

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When things are just right, the world feels like a small town.

Filled with neighbors, friends and at farthest friends of friends, at these moments we  hold each other in our thoughts and exchange kindnesses large and small. Those moments are what make our small town lives, our journey through this chaotic world, bearable and even uplifting.

The world was a very small place last night at Paradise High School’s 2019 prom. A special collection of people put together a message for the students of PHS, with some of the biggest personas in sports, music and entertainment (yes, Steve Carrell apparently is that nice in real life) lending a hand.

No amount of description will suffice for letting you see it for yourself:

Paradise Prom 2019 – Celebrity Messages from schlicken on Vimeo.

Tell your Tales from the Paradise Ridge

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Like many of my fellow Camp Fire survivors, I have been torn up since the morning of November 8, 2018.

The filmmaker in me… that part that’s worked to tell stories since Star Wars and Snow White and Ken Burns’ Civil War kindled my love of cinematic storytelling… wants to tell the whole story of what happened to our Paradise Ridge communities.

The citizen in me… that part of me who raised a family with my wife on Scottwood Road, took our boys to Paradise Elementary, watched little league games at Egleton Field and fled the town with neighbors and friends… wants to make sure the world remembers what befell us. I want our stories told whether or not it’s me telling them.

It’s that part, the town resident, that wants to help my fellow citizens tell their story to every worthwhile reporter, author, documentarian, director, etc. who cares to listen with respect. That’s why as we’ve been working on Three Days in Paradise, we’ve been looking to partner with other storytellers to ready to tell the story of the Camp Fire as we knew it.

Which brings me to Lizzie Johnson, the San Francisco Chronicle. She’s a reporter known for her coverage of wildfires. We’re happy to announce we’re partnering with her on a new initiative to capture your stories.

In a book she’s working on, Johnson is working to tell the story of the fire and what it’s meant to us all in facts and prose. In our documentary series, we’re looking to do the same thing in images, music and sound.

So we’ve created an easy to use document you can fill out to start telling your Camp Fire story. What happened to you. What you went through. What you saw and what we should all remember. We’ll be using those to get in touch and make sure your story is known.

So please take a moment to add your story. We want to hear it, and take it to the rest of the world.

A word about shady documentary crews in Butte County, Part 1

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Hi friends,

After coming home from a very emotional series of Gold Nugget events today, I wanted to share some hard-earned wisdom with my fellow Paradise (go Bobcats!) and other Butte County neighbors.

There may be documentary crews asking your to sign something that sounds reasonable, but will actually exclude you from our story in many ways. It may also be a barrier to rebuilding some of the institutions we all love.

I’ll explain.

I came to Butte County in 1993 for college and in some ways never left. I chose to live here, my wife and I chose to raise our kids here. I love Butte County.  But much of my professional work has been in Hollywood.

Because of this I know the openness, earnestness and honesty (well, mostly, LOL) we all love in our Butte County neighbors. I also know the openness, earnestness and honesty (more than you’d assume actually) of people who work in Hollywood.

Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s I made my living as an entertainment journalist (journalism degree from Chico State 1996. Go Wildcats!). I interviewed many of the people who inspired me into filmmaking. I got to talk to directors, writers, actors. I talked to Will Farrell about his first movie (Superstar). I talked to M Night Shyamalan the week before he released The Sixth Sense. And I interviewed to Ron Howard as he prepared to release Ed TV (yes, he’s as nice as his reputation). But by this point, you don’t need me to tell you that.

In the mid-2000s until now I’ve been running my own production company out of Butte County, dividing my time between making my own documentaries and educational programs while also contracting out for various companies across the nation for various reality TV and documentary crews.

So I’m not coming at this from assumptions or things I’ve read. I know my way around Butte County and I know my way around the film and TV industry. What I learned was this: Almost all TV and filmmakers in Hollywood is trying to do a good job to make something people will enjoy. For the crews working on those films and shows, it’s a lot like any other job: People are just trying to get through their day.

And like every other job, there’s some people who just make things hard for everyone. We’ve all had that bad boss, that dullard co-worker, or that schemer who makes office politics awful.

That’s why I’m here now.

Watch Out For This:

When a documentarian talks to you, they’ll probably ask you sign what’s called a release.  Among other things, it allows them to edit you into their documentary without the fear of you suing them. Many networks, streaming services, etc. require releases for every interviewee in a documentary or they won’t air it. 

As I make Three Days in Paradise, I ask everyone to sign a release because eventually I want it on the biggest network or streaming service I can get. I want the world to know our story, to know Butte County, to know our history, and to know what this fire did to us.

But there’s another, shadier kind of release that screws things up for everyone. This kind of release is called exclusive release.

What an exclusive release says is you can ONLY talk to the documentarian for which you sign it. You can ONLY appear in their documentary. But what’s worse is it binds you even if they never use your interview. Documentarians shoot a lot of interviews they never use. So if you sign an exclusive release, that documentarian talking so nicely to you now can literally leave your story of the Camp Fire on the cutting room floor. No one will ever see your story. But here’s what’s worse:

If you sign an exclusive release,  you cannot give interviews to anyone else. 

You cannot talk to other local documentaries. Not just me, but the many others who need your stories.

You cannot talk to other non-Butte County documentaries, who we need to help keep our story alive.

You cannot talk to the many interviewers looking to record our stories for the Gold Nugget Museum, the Butte County Historical Society, or other local history institutions.

You cannot talk to the crews from Chico State looking to record our oral histories.

You cannot talk to the local news.

You cannot even talk to the video crews from our local high schools.

If you sign releases with exclusive clauses, you take your voice out of our local community. You are silenced.

Maybe that’s something you want to do. Maybe it makes sense for you. I’m not telling you what to sign or not to sign.

I’m saying I would never sign one myself.  I would never ask anyone to sign one. There’s no good reason for a documentarian to ask you to sign one. If you appear in Three Days in Paradise, it’s no skin off my nose if you also appear in any other documentary.

I’ve never seen a filmmaker I respect ask someone to sign an exclusive release for a documentary.

So if anyone asks you to sign an exclusive release, think long and hard about it. It doesn’t guarantee your story will be told. It DOES guarantee you will be silenced for local projects and may be silenced forever.

How it Burned: The Camp Fire from start to finish

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Since posting the animation of the Camp Fire’s November 8, 2018 progress (from SimTable’s illuminating data visualization system) many people have asked if there was a way to see the entire fire.

I’ve now done some more digging on SimTable’s site and found two animations: one shows November 8 from the start of the fire until midnight. The second one shows the progress form about 5:30 p.m. on November 8 until the end of the fire.

I haven’t been able to find or tweak these links to show the whole fire in one animation at one constant speed.

With that said, here they are:

Day 1 from 6:44 a.m. to midnight.

Here’s the direct link:

https://www.simtable.com/apps/fireProgression/CampDayOne/CampDayOne.html?playback=240

And here’s the animation:

Day 1 (November 8) from 5:37 p.m. to Day 18 (November 25) 6:22 p.m.

Here’s the direct link:

https://www.simtable.com/apps/fireProgression/output2018/CABTU_016737_CAMP.html

And here’s the animation:

These #CampFire survivors are being asked to carry a burden for all of Paradise, Magalia and Concow… and need our help

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Usually, this a blog dedicated to tracking the production of Three Days in Paradise, a documentary series about our Butte County communities before, during and after the Camp Fire.

But today, this is a call to help a group of #CampFire survivors to which fate (and the Federal Government) has dealt an especially cruel hand.

Let’s call them Camp Fire Survivors 2.0. They are the first people who moved back to the burn area in RVs and trailers to begin the recovery and plan for rebuilding… and are now being ordered to evacuate again. The health of the recovery… of the entire town and all our fates… depends on them. So they need our help.

Here are a few stories about the situation:

Paradise Post, Sacramento Bee, Action News Now

I’ll explain what I know.

The Background

One of the contracts for my business, RocketSpots.tv, is to record and broadcast the Butte Board of Supervisors meeting. So I’ve been to these meetings, listened to the presentations, and talked to almost all the players involved.

In December, they passed urgency ordinances which allowed people with RVs and trailers to return and live on their own parcels in the county’s jurisdiction located in the Paradise, Magalia and Concow areas. This was to help them get back to living near home faster, get a jump on the community rebuilding and to free up living spaces in Chico, Oroville and other areas for people without access to RVs and trailers. These rules were passed in good faith after county staff and supervisors discussed the rules with the Federal Emergency Management Administration and Cal Office of Emergency Services and there were given verbal assurances the rules would be OK as long as the RVs and trailers were more than 100 feet from burned structures.

The Town of Paradise passed similar rules while also consulting with the county, FEMA and Cal OES. They did their due diligence to make sure these rules helped our community while at the same time making it possible for FEMA funds to help with the clean up. After all, the declaration of disaster allowed billions of dollars to be available to help clean up the unprecedented destruction of the fire.

As we all know, the cost to clean up over 15,000 destroyed structures far outstrips what the towns of Concow, Magalia, Pulga, Paradise, the county and all the other affected areas can afford. If we have to pay for this ourselves, these areas will remain in ruins for decades or more.

And so, with the rules in place, citizens returned. Thesy did what the county and the town asked. They applied for permits to return. In many cases, they paid thousands of dollars beyond their insurance payouts to make sure they were following the rules laid out. They did it the right way.

These were the first citizens of Magalia, Concow and Paradise to begin the rebuilding.

What FEMA gives FEMA takes

Well, apparently last week new leadership at FEMA overseeing the recovery informed county and town officials these rules would make it impossible to use FEMA funds to do this clean up. In fact if FEMA did fund this clean up, to the tune of $1.7 billion, there was a very real possibility the General Services Administration (which oversees the Federal budget) would audit the payouts in two or four or six years time and decide the payments were made improperly. At that time, the GSA could and would require the funds be returned.

The logic goes like this: The town and county can’t say these areas are so toxic and dangerous they require emergency disaster funds to clean up while at the same time allowing people to live in RVs and trailers the same areas. If they are allowed to live there, the funds cannot be used. If they don’t live there, the funds can be used.

My understanding is the FEMA leaders also provided examples of past disasters where the GSA had pulled back hundreds of millions of dollars from local cities, towns and counties.

The situation is stark: Get these Camp Fire survivors out of RVs and trailers on burned parcels, or lose this money. And as we all know, though it is hard to admit, if this money doesn’t come Paradise, Magalia and Concow will never be cleared. We will never have our communities to be rebuilt.

Two irritating side-notes… FEMA is fine with people living in unburned houses just as close for some reason, which is a point of illogic I’ve seen frustrate Paradise and county officials alike. Also, though FEMA was demanding these changes and was aware of the disruption to Camp Fire survivors, they did not send representatives to either the county or Paradise town meetings discussing these rule changes.

The burden these Camp Fire Survivors are lifting for us all

So here’s where we are: The fire’s pain was distributed almost equally. Rich and poor, old and young, new resident and 5th generation townsperson all lost. We all ran. We’re all looking for a place to live and a moment of normalcy.

We all wait for the day when we can return to the places we loved.

But the burden to make sure these funds are safe is not shared equally. It is falling on those most eager, most ready to return and begin the rebuilding. They are being asked leave the area of the Camp Fire again.

All of us survivors, those in Chico, Oroville, Gridley, Red Bluff and farther out are depending on the town, the county and these few survivors to get this right so we can rebuild.

That’s why these survivors need the help of all of us.

What we can do for them

I don’t have this all worked out, but listening to the hardships these citizens shared at the Paradise Town Meeting and Butte County Board of Supervisors Meeting, moving again is as cruel a blow as we can imagine.

For many, it’s a move too much. They spent what hard cash they had getting their RVs and trailers back to their parcels. Some just can’t afford to move again, and none deserve it. But they must so we can all have a town again.

The best information available is they need to move for as much as three months, while the CAL OES teams clear their plots first… which allows them to return in their RV and trailers with the minimal possible disruption.

So what’s needed? I think we need a movement of Camp Fire survivors to help these newly displaced neighbors. We need a portion of the funds, resources and programs already donated to be dedicated to these Camp Fire Refugees 2.0 to make it possible for them to move as easily and painlessly as possible.

I’m not in the position to orchestrate all this, but the internet is a beautiful thing to organize a lot of people quickly.

Please post below if you know someone who’s in this tough spot and could use help.

Also, please post below organizations or people who could help.

And if you have suggestions on how to do this, please let’s get this organized.

These are Camp Fire victims who are doing something tough, unfair and painful which will help us all. They are taking the hit. Let’s do what we can to help them.