Direct Impact Fund<\/a>.<\/p>\nMost people left in a hurry with the bare essentials \u2014 if they managed to grab anything.<\/p>\n
There were a lot of seniors and retirees living in Paradise, Romick said, and she worries about their health and ability to start over.<\/p>\n
Larry Miller lived in Paradise for 47 years and recently retired.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Miller and his wife Bonnie were allowed back into their neighborhood for the first time since they fled Nov. 8. Wearing Hazmat suits and rubber boots, they sifted through what was left of their life in the beautiful house at the edge of a canyon. They were given a 24-hour window.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are mourning it every day,\u201d Miller said of their home. \u201cMore and more.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Millers described that fateful last morning when their dog Sunny woke them. They went outside to see a massive cloud of smoke and flames rushing toward them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe felt the embers,\u201d Miller said. \u201cWe got everything we could into the car. There was no warning. By the time we got out, everything was full ablaze.\u201d<\/p>\n
They drove out of town in a panic with hundreds of other cars. It took 45 minutes for them to go 10 miles. Two of the three roads out of town were blocked by the fire.<\/p>\n
They knew their house was doomed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe left a lot of important stuff behind,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd 47 years of living.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was his medical equipment from his long career, the trumpet he played with a band that gathered regularly to practice in their small barn and the photo albums from raising six kids.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll that history is gone,\u201d Larry said.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Miller found the melted pieces of his trumpet.<\/p>\n
But the Millers are grateful they made it out. Miller said he knows of several former patients who did not, including elderly people without cell phones or cars, unable to get out on their own.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a lot of horror stories,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Miller said there are many people who are vulnerable, uninsured or underinsured and people who don\u2019t have enough money to get a place to stay.<\/p>\n
Even before the fire, some carriers in the region stopped offering fire insurance or drastically hiked premiums.<\/p>\n
The Millers aren\u2019t sure what is next for them, as they navigate the logistics with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.<\/p>\n
“We spoke with several neighbors yesterday,” Bonnie Miller said on Sunday, after they returned from the ruins. “The younger ones are definitely rebuilding. It\u2019s the older folks, like us, who are uncertain about what to do.”<\/p>\n
\u201cI have three extra bedrooms,\u201d Romick told them on the phone, eager to know if they\u2019d found a place to rent.<\/p>\n
They hadn\u2019t. They are currently staying with their son in Chico.<\/p>\n
Larry said they are considering moving to Steamboat.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a lot of options now,\u201d he said. \u201cBut no answers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Larry said he is most concerned about housing and medical care for his fellow residents. People are still living in tents as the rainy season approaches.<\/p>\n
And there are lessons to be heeded by other communities, he noted. More could have been done.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt behooves everyone to have a good fire containment plan,\u201d Larry said. “As well as a good evacuation plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople have been talking about Paradise burning down as long as I\u2019ve lived there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Bonnie described their current state as “a real quandary \u2014 when family wants you in the big city, but your heart wants peaceful little Paradise, where you hear birds, see deer, squirrels, raccoons and even an occasional fox or bear.”<\/p>\n
As much as they loved their home and neighborhood, rebuilding a house when you’re “70-ish” is a massive and stressful undertaking, Bonnie noted, and not something the Millers are sure they want to do.<\/p>\n
via:: Vail Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OAK CREEK \u2014 On television, Oak Creek resident Janie Romick watched the real estate office she worked at for 16 years in Paradise, California, burn to the ground. \u201cIt was hard to watch on the news,\u201d she said of the coverage of the Camp Fire that killed 86 people and destroyed more than 18,000 structures. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1301932","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-11 22:57:43","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1301932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1301932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1301932\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1301932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1301932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1301932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}