As Camp Fire Survivors Begin To Return Home, Many Are Plagued With Anxiety About Finding Nothing There
The Butte County Sheriff’s Office last week said it completed its search for human remains and will this week allow survivors to visit what’s left of their homes, a wait that has been unusually long, which local officials attribute to the scale of the devastation.
The Wall Street Journal:
California Fire Survivors Begin Returning To Homes That No Longer Exist
Nearly a month after the Camp Fire destroyed the town of Paradise and surrounding communities, some residents are beginning to see what is left. Authorities gave residents of Magalia, Calif., just north of Paradise, 12 hours on Sunday to look through what remained of their homes. “It really looks like a bomb went off,” Manny Carrasco, 46, said after briefly visiting what was once a two-bedroom home surrounded by pine trees in Magalia. “All the houses in the neighborhood were leveled. It was total devastation.” (Carlton, 12/5)
Los Angeles Times:
How Northern California's Destructive Wildfires Could Exacerbate The State's Housing Crisis
Northern California’s recent wildfires have burned homes at a greater pace than developers are building them, deepening a housing shortage that already has left millions struggling to find affordable places to live. Five large wildfires over the past 14 months, with November’s Camp fire the most devastating, have destroyed nearly 21,000 homes across six counties. That total is equivalent to more than 85% of all the new housing built in those counties over the past decade, according to Construction Industry Research Board building permit statistics. (Dillon, 12/5)
Los Angeles Times:
Should Tejon Ranch Project Be Approved? L.A. County To Vote On Building A New City Where Fire Hazard Is High
A long-debated development in a remote, uninhabited part of Los Angeles County could be vulnerable to dangerous wildfires of the type California has seen in recent months, prompting concerns about the safety of building there. The Centennial development at Tejon Ranch would sit squarely within “high” and “very high” fire hazard severity zones as defined by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. (Agrawal, 12/4)