Paradise
One Town's Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire
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Narrated by:
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Lizzie Johnson
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By:
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Lizzie Johnson
About this listen
The definitive firsthand account of California’s Camp Fire, the nation’s deadliest wildfire in a century, Paradise is a riveting examination of what went wrong and how to avert future tragedies as the climate crisis unfolds.
“A tour de force story of wildfire and a terrifying look at what lies ahead.”—San Francisco Chronicle (Best Books of the Year)
On November 8, 2018, the people of Paradise, California, awoke to a mottled gray sky and gusty winds. Soon the Camp Fire was upon them, gobbling an acre a second. Less than two hours after the fire ignited, the town was engulfed in flames, the residents trapped in their homes and cars. By the next morning, eighty-five people were dead.
As a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, Lizzie Johnson was there as the town of Paradise burned. She saw the smoldering rubble of a historic covered bridge and the beloved Black Bear Diner and she stayed long afterward, visiting shelters, hotels, and makeshift camps. Drawing on years of on-the-ground reporting and reams of public records, including 911 calls and testimony from a grand jury investigation, Johnson provides a minute-by-minute account of the Camp Fire, following residents and first responders as they fight to save themselves and their town. We see a young mother fleeing with her newborn; a school bus full of children in search of an escape route; and a group of paramedics, patients, and nurses trapped in a cul-de-sac, fending off the fire with rakes and hoses.
In Paradise, Johnson documents the unfolding tragedy with empathy and nuance. But she also investigates the root causes, from runaway climate change to a deeply flawed alert system to Pacific Gas and Electric’s decades-long neglect of critical infrastructure. A cautionary tale for a new era of megafires, Paradise is the gripping story of a town wiped off the map and the determination of its people to rise again.
©2021 Lizzie Johnson (P)2021 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“Immediate and emotionally devastating . . . Johnson works to balance the imperative of narrative tension with respect for the unimaginable tragedy, and the resulting work is worth the emotional toll of reading it.”—Los Angeles Times
“In this reportorial tour de force, Lizzie Johnson captures the orange-black hell of the Paradise wildfire in wrenching, skin-singeing detail. You can smell the smoke, feel the super-heated air. After reading this book I wanted to clear all brush and trees away from my home—and I live in Manhattan.”—Erik Larson, author of The Splendid and the Vile
“A masterful feat of reporting and climate-era storytelling. [Johnson] has taken the story of a rough-hewn town of retirees and Trumpers, population 27,000 (pre-fire), and turned it into a parable of suffering and loss, of love and heroism.”—Rolling Stone
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On June 6, 2015, inmates Richard Matt and David Sweat escaped from Clinton Correctional Facility, New York State's largest maximum security prison. The media was instantly obsessed with the story: aided by a prison seamstress who smuggled hacksaw blades, chisels, and drill bits inside the facility via a vat of raw hamburger meat, the two convicted murderers sliced their way through steel cell walls, meandered through a maze of tunnels, climbed out of a manhole, and walked off into the night.
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Awful
- By VT Lady on 07-23-18
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Full Body Burden
- Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats
- By: Kristen Iversen
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter, Kristen Iversen
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Kristen Iversen grew up in a small Colorado town close to Rocky Flats, a secret nuclear weapons plant once designated "the most contaminated site in America." Full Body Burden is the story of a childhood and adolescence in the shadow of the Cold War, in a landscape at once startlingly beautiful and--unknown to those who lived there--tainted with invisible yet deadly particles of plutonium.
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A story that no one else wanted to tell.
- By Carol on 01-28-13
By: Kristen Iversen
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Miracle Country
- A Memoir
- By: Kendra Atleework
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Kendra Atleework grew up in Swall Meadows, in the Owens Valley of the Eastern Sierra Nevada, where annual rainfall averages five inches and in drought years measures closer to zero. Kendra's family raised their children to thrive in this harsh landscape, forever at the mercy of wildfires, blizzards, and gale-force winds. Most of all, the Atleework children were raised on unconditional love and delight in the natural world. But it came at a price.
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The best memoir I've read
- By Patricia on 08-15-20
By: Kendra Atleework
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Humboldt
- Life on America's Marijuana Frontier
- By: Emily Brady
- Narrated by: Dan Woren, Sonny Warner, Erin Bennett, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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In the vein of Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief and Deborah Feldman's Unorthodox, journalist Emily Brady journeys into a secretive subculture - one that marijuana built. Say the words "Humboldt County" to a stranger and you might receive a knowing grin. The name is infamous, and yet the place, and its inhabitants, have been nearly impenetrable. Until now. Humboldt is a narrative exploration of an insular community in Northern California, which for nearly 40 years has existed primarily on the cultivation and sale of marijuana.
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Great book!
- By David on 02-26-15
By: Emily Brady
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Action Park
- Fast Times, Wild Rides, and the Untold Story of America's Most Dangerous Amusement Park
- By: Andy Mulvihill, Jake Rossen
- Narrated by: Michael Satow
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Often called "Accident Park", "Class Action Park", or "Traction Park", Action Park was an American icon. Entertaining more than a million people a year in the 1980s, the New Jersey-based amusement playland placed no limits on danger or fun, a monument to the anything-goes spirit of the era that left guests in control of their own adventures - sometimes with tragic results. Action Park is the first-ever unvarnished look at the history of this DIY Disneyland, as seen through the eyes of Andy Mulvihill, the son of the park's idiosyncratic founder, Gene Mulvihill.
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Fascinating, but lacking in substance
- By That Guy From the Video Store on 09-05-20
By: Andy Mulvihill, and others
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The Yellow House
- By: Sarah M. Broom
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1961, Sarah M. Broom’s mother Ivory Mae bought a shotgun house in the then-promising neighborhood of New Orleans East and built her world inside of it. It was the height of the Space Race and the neighborhood was home to a major NASA plant - the postwar optimism seemed assured. A book of great ambition, Sarah M. Broom’s The Yellow House tells a hundred years of her family and their relationship to home in a neglected area of one of America’s most mythologized cities.
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Great book. I wish the pictures had been included.
- By Lindsay on 02-28-20
By: Sarah M. Broom
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A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear
- The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town (and Some Bears)
- By: Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Once upon a time, a group of libertarians got together and hatched the Free Town Project, a plan to take over an American town and completely eliminate its government. In 2004, they set their sights on Grafton, NH, a barely populated settlement with one paved road. When they descended on Grafton, public funding for pretty much everything shrank: the fire department, the library, the schoolhouse. State and federal laws became meek suggestions, scarcely heard in the town's thick wilderness.
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Author's Political Biases Shine Through
- By Frank on 12-20-20
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The Rescuer
- One Firefighter’s Story of Courage, Darkness, and the Relentless Love That Saved Him
- By: Jason Sautel, D.R. Jacobsen - contributor
- Narrated by: Mark Smeby
- Length: 5 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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He helped save people every day - but he had no idea how to save himself. Jason Sautel had it all. Confident in his abilities and trusted by his fellow firefighters, he was making a name for himself on the streets of Oakland, California. His adrenaline-fueled job even helped him forget the pain of his childhood - until the day he looked into the eyes of a jumper on the Bay Bridge and came face-to-face with a darkness he knew would take him down as well.
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Real..... and good!
- By Anonymous User on 03-07-21
By: Jason Sautel, and others
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Chasing Catastrophe
- My 35 Years Covering Wars, Hurricanes, Terror Attacks, and Other Breaking News
- By: Rick Leventhal
- Narrated by: Rick Leventhal
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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From the front lines in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and other conflict zones to the base of the burning Twin Towers on 9/11 to the eye of countless hurricanes, Rick Leventhal chronicles some of the most amazing stories he’s covered in his thirty-five years as a news reporter, anchor, and Senior Correspondent—with some life lessons thrown in along the way.
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Great insights on catastrophes from a journalistic perspective
- By Laura N. Rains on 05-18-23
By: Rick Leventhal
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The Father, Son, and Holy Shuttle
- Growing Up an Astronaut's Kid in the Glorious 80s
- By: Patrick Mullane
- Narrated by: Luke Covert
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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The families behind America’s astronaut heroes are just like yours...sort of. This is the hilarious true story of one of those families. While many children grow up wanting to become an astronaut, Patrick Mullane grew up the child of one. In his memoir, The Father, Son, and Holy Shuttle: Growing Up an Astronaut’s Kid in the Glorious 80s, Mullane shares his hilarious coming-of-age story. It’s a story about his quirky and death-defying father, a mother with a secret, and a cast of characters from his extended family who showed their love for him in often bizarre ways.
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Great personal story! Entertaining and funny.
- By Alex MacPhail on 01-10-22
By: Patrick Mullane
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The Esperanza Fire
- Arson, Murder and the Agony of Engine 57
- By: John N. Maclean
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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The Esperanza Fire started October 26, 2006, in the San Jacinto Mountains above the Banning Pass near Cabazon, California. It destroyed 41,000 acres and dozens of homes and cost the taxpayers $16 million dollars. But by far the highest costs of the conflagration were the lives of the five-man crew of Engine 57, the first engine crew ever killed fighting a wildland blaze. Fire and superheated gases had erupted in a freak "area ignition," sending flames racing across three-quarters of a mile in mere seconds, engulfing the crew and the house they were defending.
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Read the "book reviews" on Amazon before judging.
- By IdyGal on 08-26-18
By: John N. Maclean
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Heartshot
- An Undersheriff Bill Gastner Mystery #1
- By: Steven F. Havill
- Narrated by: Rusty Nelson
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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New Mexico Undersheriff Bill Gastner is presented with a case that appears to have brought big-time crime, including drug gangs, into Posadas County.
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An Excellent Start
- By Ian on 03-05-09
By: Steven F. Havill
What listeners say about Paradise
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Penny
- 09-16-22
Personalization of a terrible tragedy
We all remember seeing this horrific story unfold on the news. The author tells the complete story supported by facts and illustrated with stories of those most significantly impacted. Extremely well done.
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- Gudmundur Hardarson
- 09-19-23
A riveting account
The book covers the events of 2018 when a California wildfire burned down the town of Paradise, making it at the time the US' deadliest wildfire in a century. I read this as a part of a book club, we decided on this book only a few days after the horrible events of the Maui wildfires (2023) so reading it in the aftermath of those events also made it even more impactful. But also it drew attention to the book's description which says: "a riveting examination of what went wrong and how to avert future tragedies as the climate crisis unfolds".
The description of how the events unfolded is chilling and demonstrates how horribly things can go wrong in a situation like this, both with logistics and technology, not to mention the role that infrastructure and lack of maintenance played in this tragedy.
There are many heartbreaking passages but the list of casualties and their circumstances when found was extremely sad for me, a bit reminiscent of how I felt witnessing the victims of Pompeii.
All in all I felt the writing was good. It does a good job of relating both personal and public records of events.
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- Anonymous User
- 01-10-22
Hands down amazing!
Lizzie did a phenomenal job writing this book as well as narrating it! The book packs more of a punch when the real author is reading it. The interviews she conducted, the stories she shared, and the carefully crafted way she wrote this book share the true devastation that Paradise went through.
From listening to this book alone, you can hear she cares about the topic, she cares about the people, and she wants to see change in the future when it comes to wildfire damage. I will always recommend this book, because it for every kind of person to read. My heart goes out to all of the victims of the 2018 wildfire, the ones proceeding and for all of those whose lives preventable and unpreventable wildfires will affect in the future.
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- Erin H
- 02-05-22
Such a difficult story, but so well told.
As someone who works in public outreach for a fire agency in a wildfire prone area, this is a great piece of work that I recommend to every fire official, planning official, local leader, legislator, etc.
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- LT
- 10-12-22
Haunted my dreams
Listening to this book on my morning walks haunted my dreams at night. It’s that good. I live not far from Paradise and still remember that first day vividly.
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- Richard G.
- 09-03-21
Paradise
Wonderful book. So sad that is not a fictional book. My previous neighbors had moved away from Newark to their “retirement paradise” years ago. I am so heartbroken at the loss and deaths that gave resulted from this devastating fire, but do very grateful that my friends did survive. God bless them, and God bless everyone💜🙏💜🙏
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- Kindle Customer
- 08-14-22
Hard to listen to but could not stop.
Be aware this is what happened. So we'll done it made me cringe, cry, and want to talk to the people as I heard their stories.
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-14-24
Riveting, tragic and inspiring.
Lizzie Johnson is a one-of-a-kind storyteller. She has a way of portaling the listener into the seen. You will feel the heat of the embers.
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- dB
- 08-31-21
Exceptional Work
Lizzie Johnson unveils Corporate culpability and failings, life in a small town and traumatic memories of my own hellish escape from Paradise on November 8th, 2018. Her literary work illuminates the myriad of facts at the genesis of this fire through woven facets of the lives of many who experienced this harrowing event. Her storytelling brings this tragedy to life in a way that people who weren’t there will certainly feel like they were and feel extremely blessed that they were not.
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- Jessica
- 10-09-21
Skillfully written page turner
Lizzie Johnson does a remarkable job of weaving together the detailed stories of a selection of Paradise community members and their diverse experiences - from the time they settled in the community to the time they were forced to flee. She injects explanations for extreme wildfire - climate change, forest management, PG&E culpability, settlement of urban/wild-land interface- in a way that is easy to digest and keeps the focus on the people and communities who are directly impacted. A must-read for anyone who wants to feel and understand the fire challenges the West’s forested rural communities face.
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