My partner is a fanatic knitter buying, collecting and using specialist yarn from all over the world.
When a shipment from California failed to turn up she made inquiries of her usually reliable supplier.
In short, they lost everything - here is an extract from a reply email:
The worst fire in California history started as a spark, supposedly from a PG & E transformer by the little community of Paluga. Amazingly, in less than 90 minutes, it raced seven miles across rugged terrain towards the still sleeping town of Paradise.
It was consuming the equivalent of 80 football fields a minute. The flames were being driven by 50 mph winds gusting to 70 mph through the Feather River Canyon. Then like an army of fire ants the flames erupted out of the gorge as they spread into thick forests.
At 8:00 A.M., I was Patient 0 at Feather River Hospital, meaning I was in pre-op, the 1st patient going in for surgery that morning. Then the fire climbed out of the Feather River Canyon on a broad raging front behind the hospital. Glowing embers were riding a hot gusting wind that shot into our towering pine trees like bursts of red tracer fire.
A nurse quickly disconnected my IV and I ran. The staff was surging into the hallways and racing into rooms to evacuate patients. They would save all 60 patients, some in ICU, in less than 30 minutes—amazing!
Chase, my son, was waiting for me as a I ran out of the hospital and climbed into his car. Across the parking lot fire was already into the trees which began crowning with flames.
As Chase accelerated out of the parking lot, fires were beginning to erupt on both sides of the road. Chase raced with dense smoke blowing across the road, there were flying embers glowing in the dark swirling smoke. Behind us a tempest was beginning to rage. Soon people would have to abandon their cars and run for their lives—some didn't make it. So far 48 bodies have been recovered. Tragically they expect to recover many more. One of the victims was a long-time friend of my mother-in-law.
There were barrages of explosions from burning propane tanks as we turned onto our street. We live on the edge of the Feather River Canyon just a mile down from the hospital. A huge billowing cloud of black smoke covered the northern horizon; the morning sun was blood red.
We only had time to grab a few things and throw them into the car. Then the big propane tanks at the hospital, exploded! Chase yelled, “It’s time to go.”
Cheyenne my daughter pleaded for one more box and ran back into the house. Later, I would learn that she had grabbed Cindy’s and my wedding pictures and our favourite baby pictures.
Our five cars surged out of our neighbourhood into a traffic jam. There were already accidents. Smoke and embers filled the sky, but we made it to Chico over 2 hours later.
The picture is of me at our church two days later and happy to be alive.
To date, over 7,700 homes were completely destroyed along with 200+ businesses. So much tragedy for a small community to endure, the whole town wiped out in a single day.
Yet, in our church, there was so much gratitude even though half of us or more had lost our homes, but we had survived. Our LORD is very good to us indeed…
