In August, the Butte County Sheriff’s Department said one more person who suffered serious injuries in the fire had passed away, bringing the official toll to 86. 80 football fields a minute was the rate at which the fire spread at its peak. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. FRONTLINE is a registered trademark of WGBH Educational Foundation. Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation. A still from FRONTLINE’s “Fire in Paradise.”. As of 10 a.m. Pacific Standard Time on November 9, the fire had consumed 70,000 acres of land and was five percent contained, or surrounded by a barrier. Internal documents obtained by The Wall Street Journal this year found that in 2017, the utility estimated the average age of its transmission towers was 68 years old. Please reload the page and try again. He said Laguna Beach focuses on responsible grazing and fuels management, including the use of goats to clear dry vegetation near residential areas. And the state also faces a vexing, decades-long debate about how to protect homeowners while still preserving the environment that Californians cherish, particularly in rural areas. Patients, some carrying their IV bags, were loaded up into the vehicles of doctors, nurses and other hospital staff. “This is where I will die, but hopefully from natural causes — not from fire.”. In 1993, a massive wind-driven fire ripped through the Southern California enclave of Laguna Beach, destroying 400 homes. Do you see flames? At 6:30 am on November 8, a wildfire of astounding proportions and speed broke out in Northern California. “Deflect, Delay, Defer”: Decade of Pacific Gas & Electric Wildfire Safety Pushback Preceded Disasters, Amid New Warnings on Global Warming, Revisit FRONTLINE’s Recent Climate Reporting, After Deadly Fire, Regulators and Consumers Question PG&E Blackouts, Cheat Codes: Students Search For Shortcuts as Virtual Schooling Expands, As Purdue Pharma Agrees to Settle with the DOJ, Revisit Its Role in the Opioid Crisis, With Election 2020 Underway, a Key Provision of the Voting Rights Act Languishes. California is under a state of Emergency and all CAL FIRE resources are fully committed to battling these fires. We reserve the right to not post comments that are more than 400 words. Our Findings Unfold Tonight. Major funding for FRONTLINE is provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation. FRONTLINE investigates the defining moments that shaped Donald Trump and Joe Biden's lives. “It wasn’t a normal evacuation that we’ve been planning and rehearsing,” Nichole Jolly, a nurse at the hospital, told FRONTLINE. It said, “PG&E disagrees with any suggestion that it knew of any specific maintenance conditions that caused the Camp Fire and nonetheless deferred work that would have addressed those conditions.”, 132 calls to 911 were answered by Paradise’s dispatch center between 6:30 a.m., around the time the fire was first reported, and when the calls were rerouted at 8:20 a.m., according to the San Francisco Chronicle. You are fully responsible for your comments. Lenya Quinn-Davidson, a wildfire advisor for the University of California Cooperative Extension and director of the Northern California Prescribed Fire Council, said techniques to address wildfires should range from individual homeowners hardening their homes by clearing land and using fire-safe materials, to community solutions such as intentional burns to clear dry vegetation. Losses in the Camp Fire made up a major chunk of the $12.4 billion in damage claims from California wildfires in 2018. A note from our executive producer about the new documentary 'Whose Vote Counts,' premiering Oct. 20. “They’ll spend millions of dollars to fight fires and to clean up after fires, but there’s very little funding from those higher up levels of government to put in the preparation,” he said.