
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
A cautionary tale for a new era of megafires, Paradise is the gripping true story of a town wiped off the map and the determination of its people to rise again.
Now in development as a major motion picture starring Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrera
“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. The definitive firsthand account of the nation’s deadliest wildfire in a century, Paradise is a riveting examination of what went wrong and how to avert future tragedies.
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Critic reviews
2021, GoodReads Choice Award, Nominated
2022, California Book Award, Winner
“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
“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
Amazing Storytelling!
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Personalization of a terrible tragedy
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Such a difficult story, but so well told.
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Haunted my dreams
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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.
A riveting account
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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.
Hands down amazing!
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A world class nonfiction book
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This book told me much of what she has tried to tell me about what was going on in this horrific disaster, and has never been able to finish. I appreciate that more than I can say.
This book made me cry, made me angry, and made me shake my head in disgust & disbelief.
It also made me feel awestruck at the courage & unity of the people of Paradise. And it made me feel so proud of the Emergency Services personnel giving everything they had to the fight...many of whom both my husband & myself worked along side in Nevada, Yuba,, & Sutter Counties until our retirement in 2012.
Thank you for tying up a lot of loose ends of this incident for us.
A Great Documen-story.
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I live within an hour of Paradise in the Sierra foothills, and even sheltered a refugee for a few days in the aftermath of the Camp fire. We live here with the constant threat of fire, however this book made it real for me. It made me think about the shortcomings in our own evacuation planning, and I have to think that that’s part of the point in writing the book. A required read for anyone living in an area under this threat.
Wow - a wake up call
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What a story!
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