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Anna Dees bursts out the front door of her house, holding her laptop and as many books as she can carry. Her two dogs follow close behind as she runs towards her car. She can see flames racing down the nearby canyon walls. The smell of smoke is overwhelming.
She stops for a moment and looks back towards the house. Dad, we gotta go! I'm coming! It's early evening on November 8th, 2018, in Butte Creek Canyon, California. It's an idyllic community nestled in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, halfway between San Francisco and the Oregon border.
But right now, it's an inferno. Deese is 25 years old, with broad shoulders and round cheeks. She's lived in this house her entire life, in the dry terrain of rural California. Wildfires are a fact of life, but she's never seen one move this fast. Half an hour ago, the flames were barely visible in the distance.
Now, they're barreling down on her. Embers and sparks fly through the air. Her ears ring from the roar of the flames. She reaches her car and throws her belongings inside. The dogs leap into the backseat.
panting and whining. Deese climbs into the driver's seat, sweat pouring down her cheeks. She honks the horn and keeps her eyes on the front door, waiting for her dad. Her heart pounds and her hands shake. What could be taking him so long?
Finally, her father, Gordy Dees, emerges from the house. His arms are overflowing with T-shirts. Anna shakes her head. Of course her father would risk his life to save his collection of vintage motorcycle T-shirts.
As he gets closer to the car, Anna can see his white goatee has turned gray from the ash floating in the air. Gordy dumps the t-shirts in the back seat next to the dogs. I'll be right back. No, we have to go, Dad. Just one second. Anna gives up. Her father's the most stubborn person on this planet.
Arguing with him will only waste more precious time. Gordy slams the car door shut and runs back to the house. Anna notices that flames are starting to appear on their wooden deck. Gordy jumps through them and hurtles through the door. Anna's chest tightens. The fire spreads fast. Moments later, flames consume the wall outside their kitchen and race up to the roof.
Anna grips the steering wheel so tight her hands ache. Dad! Dad! She stares at the front door, waiting for him to emerge. The flames keep growing, consuming more and more of the house. The kitchen wall starts teetering forward as it separates from the house. It crashes to the ground just a few feet away from Dees' car. Dad! Please!
The car parked next to hers bursts into flames. If the fire spreads to her car, she knows she'll be trapped. Anna starts the engine and shifts into reverse, still honking and screaming for her dad. She hits the gas.
But the car doesn't move. She presses harder. She can feel the wheels turning, but the car stays in place. Her breath goes fast and shallow. Dees cracks open the door of the car and looks down. The tires of her car are oozing into the ground, melted like cheese on a pizza. A chill comes over her, despite the extreme heat.
She's trapped in this ferocious blaze. She looks at the house. The flames have taken it. There's no way her father has survived. All she can do now is run for her life.
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From Wondery, I'm Cassie DePeckel, and this is Against the Odds.
On the morning of November 8th, 2018, a poorly maintained electrical line sparked a fire in the mountain wilderness of Butte County, California, about 150 miles northeast of San Francisco. The fire's ignition point was situated away from major population centers, but it spread faster than anyone expected.
spurred on by high winds and vegetation rendered bone dry by years of drought and warming temperatures. In just over an hour, it traveled seven miles west to the town of Paradise, California.
Paradise was home to nearly 27,000 people, mostly young families and retirees. The town sits on a narrow ridge of the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Only four roads led out of town, and all four quickly became packed with cars as people fled the fire.
What was normally a 15 or 20 minute drive turned into hours as traffic came to a standstill and fire engulfed the entire town. This is the story of the first responders who took heroic actions to save lives and the ordinary people who were pushed to their limits as they tried to escape the flames. This is episode one, Ignition. Ignition.
Lon Walker rummages in his old dresser to get a pair of socks. The top drawer creaks, echoing loudly in the dark house. Walker freezes, then steals a glance at his wife Ellen, who lies in bed behind him. It's a little before 3 in the morning on November 8th, 2018.
The sun won't come up for another three hours. Walker loves living in the town of Concow in Butte County, California, with its towering ponderosa pines and mountain air. But it's remote, which means Walker has to wake up in the middle of the night to make it to his job on time.
Walker watches as Ellen continues to sleep. She suffers from fibromyalgia, a condition that causes fatigue, pain, and frequent migraines. She needs her rest. Walker grabs his socks and sits down gently on the foot of the bed. His knee cracks as he lifts his foot. He adjusts his thick glasses.
Now 75, he's definitely not getting any younger, and working as a truck driver for a logging company wears him out more than it used to. Today's assignment will have him on the road for two days. He smiles as he remembers that once he finishes that run tomorrow, he'll be retired.
He'll miss having extra money for eating out and buying plants for Ellen's beloved garden, but he's excited to have more time to spend with her. They met 30 years ago, but with his long hours, it still doesn't feel like they've had enough time together. On top of that, he knows her mobility is continuing to decline. He wants to be there to care for her as much as possible. Outside, the wind chimes clang ferociously,
It's really blowing out there. Walker knows he'll need to be extra careful out on the road today. He shoves his feet into his boots and tiptoes to the head of the bed. He bends down and kisses Ellen on the forehead. Goodbye, my love. Next time I see you, I'll be a retired man. Walker heads into the hallway and grabs his hat off a hook. As he opens the door and steps into a gust of warm wind, he looks back inside.
Soon, he won't ever have to leave Ellen again. He can't wait to start the next chapter of their lives. Matt McKenzie stands in the kitchen of his fire station, expertly dicing red potatoes into dime-sized pieces, perfect for corned beef hash, his specialty.
Mackenzie is 42, with short white hair and a round, boyish face. He became a captain four years ago, and now leads Station 36 in Butte County, California. As a captain, he isn't required to cook breakfast for his crew, but he has a reputation to uphold. He's not seating the title of Best Station Chef in the County just because he got a promotion.
Mackenzie dumps the potatoes into a bowl of water to ensure they don't turn brown and moves on to chopping green peppers. He steals a glance at his cell phone, which sits face up on the counter, almost 6:30 a.m. Usually the crew wakes up at 6:15 sharp, but it's November 8th, past what is typically the worst of wildfire season. All they have scheduled today is a trading hike in the afternoon, so Mackenzie is letting his crew rest.
This year's wildfire season was the worst in California's recorded history. Six firefighters in the state died. McKenzie knows the danger isn't past. The drought that fueled the destructive season shows no signs of abating. Technically, the rainy season started a month ago. There's just been no rain. And it may be November, but the weather this past week has been unusually warm. In fact...
A red flag fire weather warning has been posted today for the county. But McKenzie isn't too worried about it. It's hard for him to imagine that a bad wildfire could get sparked this late in the year. The temporary firefighters who came in to give extra support during the fire season have already left. McKenzie is confident his men will be able to handle any challenge that might arise.
Wind thumps against the windows. Mackenzie's impressed that the rest of the firefighters can sleep through the ruckus. The wind woke him up just over an hour ago. As he starts removing the stem from another pepper, his phone lights up with an alert. The notification is from Cal Fire's Emergency Command Center, which is 20 miles away in Oroville.
The alert says that a worker at Poe Dam spotted a vegetation fire. Mackenzie's station is about seven miles from the dam, so they're being dispatched to check it out. Out of habit, Mackenzie sniffs the air. He doesn't smell any smoke, just the corned beef in the slow cooker and freshly brewed coffee. He opens the back door, and the wind nearly rips it out of his hand.
But there's no ash. And still, no smell of smoke. Well, this is probably BS. But it doesn't matter. It's his job to check it out and report back to the command center. He steps back inside the station.
Emergency tones blare from radios around the station house. The other firefighters stumble out of the barracks and start loading into the engines. Mackenzie flicks off his sandals and dons his fire suit. Breakfast will have to wait. Rochelle Sanders stares at her son Lincoln as he nurses. She's sitting in a chair in the corner of the birthing suite at Feather River Hospital in Paradise, California.
Her husband, Chris, sleeps in a chair nearby. She can hear his light snores as the nurses chat out in the hall.
It's a little after 6.30 in the morning. The rising sun casts a golden glow over the newborn baby's delicate features. Rochelle can't stop looking at his tiny nose, his minuscule fingers, his fine hair. She feels like if she looks away, he'll disappear. It's amazing that he's here at all. When she arrived at the hospital yesterday afternoon, she thought she was just coming for a routine appointment.
Her baby wasn't due for another two weeks, but the doctor found signs of fetal distress. Rochelle was admitted, and five hours later, Lincoln was born via C-section. She sighs as she thinks of all the work to be done back at the house. They haven't set up his baseball-themed nursery yet. Boxes full of clothes and supplies line their hallways, waiting to be unpacked.
Rochelle and Chris both thought they were done having kids. They'd each been married before and had children from those relationships. Plus, they're getting older. Rochelle is in her mid-30s, and Chris is nearly 50. But looking down at Lincoln, drifting off to sleep, full on milk, she can't imagine a life without him. And he hasn't even been alive for 12 hours. ♪
You have a good breakfast, little man?
Daddy's going to wake up soon, but before he does, I want you to remember these words. Dodgers good, Giants bad. Rochelle and Chris have agreed that Lincoln will get to decide which baseball team he roots for, but she's determined to win. Rochelle grew up four hours south in Fresno, but her grandparents lived in paradise and she would spend summers here.
She loved running through the forest with her siblings and cousins during the day and staring into the starry sky at night while her grandfather taught her about the constellations. After college, she and her former husband moved to paradise. But five years ago, the marriage ended. At the time, her whole life felt like it was falling apart. But then a friend introduced her to Chris. They've been arguing about baseball ever since.
Don't worry, little guy. It's just wind. She looks out the window. The trees are swaying pretty hard. Rochelle holds Lincoln tight, determined to always keep him safe.
Matt McKenzie leans out the window of his fire engine and scans the steep terrain that surrounds him. It's 6.43 a.m., 14 minutes after McKenzie got the alert on his phone. He and his crew have pulled their two trucks to the side of the road near the town of Polka, about seven miles east of Paradise. They're deep in Feather River Canyon.
Around them, the rugged canyon walls are covered with pines, yellow grasses, and brown shrubs, but no signs of flames or smoke.
Mackenzie continues to survey the landscape. Maybe that worker at Poe Dam was mistaken, or the fire was already put out. But then he hears a voice from the engine behind him. There, up top. Mackenzie looks up near the top of the canyon wall and sees it. The flames are short and the smoke pure white, signs that this is a low-intensity fire.
Through the brush, he sees a transmission line and immediately wonders if that's what started the fire. Mackenzie starts up the engine. We need a better vantage point. He pulls out and heads north on the highway. A few minutes later, he pulls over at Polga Bridges, where Highway 70 and a railroad span the Feather River. The second engine pulls up behind him. Mackenzie looks north, up the canyon wall.
The plume of smoke is growing. That's bad. But what's worse is the location of the burn. A crew member from the second engine approaches Mackenzie's truck.
"'What do you think? Ten acres burning right now?' Mackenzie nods. "'If we could get to it, we'd put it out fast. But the only way up there is Camp Creek Road.'" The crew member grimaces, and Mackenzie understands why. Last summer, Mackenzie tried to drive up Camp Creek Road in his engine. It's a dirt track so narrow that he scraped a side view mirror on the wall of the canyon. It took Mackenzie an hour to go a mile.
and there were hardly any places where the truck could turn around. If they tried to drive the engines up Camp Creek Road now, they could easily get stuck. He and his crew could try to carry hoses in on foot,
But the dryness of the brush and the strength of the winds mean that the fire could quickly overwhelm them. The fire is manageable now, but they can't get to it. And the way the wind is blowing, Mackenzie knows it will spread quickly if left uncontained. They need to prepare for the bigger fire that could emerge. They need more resources. A lot more.
Mackenzie pulls his radio out. Engine 2161 responding. We need 15 fire engines, four bulldozers, two water tenders, and some hand crews. Did you say 15 fire engines? That's affirmative. That's almost half our fleet. Yes, ma'am. This fire has the potential to be a major incident. He slides his radio back and watches the fire.
There's a sinking feeling in his stomach and a repeating thought that he can't extinguish. This is going to be a bad one. When you're hiring, time is of the essence. That's why more than 3.5 million businesses worldwide use Indeed to find exceptional talent fast. Indeed's powerful matching engine works quickly. So quickly that, according to Indeed data worldwide, every minute, 23 hires are made on Indeed—
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Head over to Symbiotica.com and use code ODDS for 20% off and free shipping on your subscription order. Kevin McKay parks his bright red Mustang next to the administration building for the Paradise Unified School District. McKay is 41 years old with a barrel chest and short brown hair. But today, he feels significantly older. His eyes are dry and itchy from lack of sleep.
It's only 6.45 in the morning, but he's ready for the day to be over. Last night, his 12-year-old son came down with a stomach flu. McKay stayed up all night taking care of him. He just wants to go back home and sleep, but he can't. Kids are relying on him to get them safely to school.
He climbs out of his car and trudges into the building, where he clocks in and grabs the keys to bus 963. As he heads back to the door, one of the assistants smiles at him. Hey, Kevin. Have a good route. Thanks. He exits the building and walks to the back of a long line of school buses. McKay taps the side of his bus affectionately as he climbs aboard.
At 22 years old, bus 963 is the oldest in the district's fleet. Its yellow paint is fading. The vinyl that covers the seats is cracking. There's a spring that jabs into his back when he drives. But McKay feels an affinity for the aging vehicle. Maybe they're not at their peak, but they're both still chugging along.
McKay grew up in Megalia, just north of Paradise. He graduated Paradise High School with good grades and as captain of the football team. He was planning on going to medical school, but during his sophomore year at nearby Chico State, his girlfriend got pregnant. McKay tried to stay in school after his daughter was born, but working overnights at a supermarket and going to class during the day was too much.
He dropped out of college and moved back home to Magalia with his young family. Over the next 20 years, he worked at Walgreens stores all over Northern California, sometimes commuting four hours a day. When his father passed away last year, McKay decided he needed to make a change.
He enrolled in community college with a plan to eventually teach history at Paradise High School, his alma mater. But he needed a job to support his family while he went back to school. When he saw the ad looking for a bus driver, he was intrigued. He'd logged a lot of hours commuting to Walgreens. He could handle driving a school bus for a couple hours a day. It's been a good fit.
McKay has earned the respect and trust of the elementary school kids on his route. He likes seeing them every day, high-fiving them when they board. No matter how tired he may feel this morning, those kids are counting on him.
McKay turns the key in the ignition and the old engine rumbles to life. He grabs the clipboard that sits next to the driver's seat and begins his daily routine, stepping through a 34-point safety checklist to make sure everything is in order. He pumps the brakes, checks the turn signals and windshield wipers, the oil and cooling fluid. When he's gone through every item on the list, he eases the bus out of the parking lot.
As he hits the gas, he tells himself what he always does when the morning feels rough. Just get the kids to school. Beth Bowersox studies the wall of monitors in front of her as she sips on a cup of black tea.
She hopes the caffeine kicks in soon. Bowersox is a dispatcher working a graveyard shift for Cal Fire's Butte County Emergency Command Center in Oroville. It's a little before 7:00 in the morning, and she's already put in a full shift. The command center had been quiet until 30 minutes ago. That's when someone reported a fire off Highway 70. Bowersox sprang into action.
She worked with her captain to locate the fire on their mapping software and name it. They called it the Camp Incident due to its proximity to Camp Creek Road. She alerted the closest fire station, as well as the Cal Fire Battalion Chief, and she agreed to stay on for another couple of hours to see it through.
Bowersox is in her mid-30s with shoulder-length brown hair and sharp features. Both of Bowersox's parents were firefighters. Her mother was CAL FIRE's first female employee. Bowersox joined CAL FIRE as a seasonal firefighter right out of high school. She distinguished herself as a woman in a male-dominated field with her intelligence and her work ethic.
She carried those assets over when she became a dispatcher. Bowersox takes another sip of tea and continues scanning the monitors. The screens are showing feeds from cameras positioned strategically around the county. They allow her to track fires and help coordinate responses.
Any minute, the battalion chief will radio in asking for an update, and Bowersox wants to be prepared. When the call first came in, she was sure this fire would be put out easily. After all, it's November, and wildfires aren't a major issue in the region this late in the year. But now, watching the monitors, she's beginning to worry. She can see that the fire is heading west, and it's moving surprisingly fast.
It's already threatening structures in Pulga, a privately owned ghost town near Po Dam that can be rented out for corporate events and wellness retreats. If the fire keeps moving two miles west, it will enter Concau, a country town with a population of 800. Just a few miles west of Concau is the town that Bower Sox calls home, Paradise, with its population of 27,000.
Bowersox is concerned. There's only so much information she can glean from the camera feeds. She needs reports from the field to get a better handle on the situation. Bowersox approaches a colleague who is answering 911 calls from civilians. "What are people seeing out there?" her colleague shrugs. "Honestly, nothing's come in." Bowersox breathes a sigh of relief.
If civilians haven't reported it, then the fire must still be contained to a remote area. Fingers crossed we get lucky and this doesn't spread to the towns. Bauer-Sox's radio chirps. It's the battalion chief. I'm at the field headquarters. What do we know? The fire's heading west. Crews are on their way, still waiting for on-the-ground reports. I need to know three things. How big the fire is, how fast it's spreading, and how close it is to structures.
Bowersox promises to relay information as soon as she gets it. Moments later, the calls start coming in. The ringing is almost deafening. Bowersox's hands go cold. The phones lighting up like this can only mean one thing. Civilians are calling 911.
People in nearby communities must be seeing signs of the fire, or worse, the fire's already reached them. Bowersox takes a deep breath. She doesn't think she'll be staying for just a couple extra hours. She'll be here for the long haul.
Rob Nichols smacks the snooze button on his clock, silencing the deafening alarm. He lets out a groan. It's 7 a.m., and last night, he didn't sleep well. The wind woke him up around 4, and he tossed and turned the rest of the night. But Nichols has to get out of bed. He's an officer with the Paradise Police Department, and he's currently partnered with a rookie who's in his first month on the job.
As his training officer, Nichols can't be late.
♪♪ ♪♪
There's an eerie glow over everything. He walks to the window and pulls open the blinds. The sky is dark orange. Everyone in Paradise knows what the color means: fire.
A number of wildfires have burned close to Paradise in Nichols' lifetime. Just 10 years ago, the Humboldt fire crept into the southwestern edge of town and six homes were lost. But by and large, the residents of Paradise have been lucky. Fires that broke out in the region mostly missed the town.
But Nichols knows it's just a matter of time before their luck runs out. Fortunately, so do city officials. They've come up with a plan for what to do when a destructive wildfire finally does hit Paradise.
The plan splits the town into 14 evacuation zones. Residents can opt in to an emergency alert system that notifies them when their zone is called. Last year, they even ran an evacuation drill. Not many people participated, but Nichols was still glad they did it. Nichols grabs his phone and calls a colleague who is working the overnight shift.
Nichols feels himself relax. Polga is a tiny town just south of Poe Dam and about seven miles east of Paradise.
It's a relief to hear they're far from any danger. He hangs up the phone and starts to get dressed. He needs to get a move on or he'll be late for his rookie. Firefighter Matt McKenzie picks up a lounge chair and flings it across the yard. Wooden patio furniture is easy kindling and he wants it as far away from this cabin as possible.
He's in Pulga, a tiny town on the banks of the Feather River. It used to be an old gold rush town. Now, it's privately owned and rented out for wellness retreats. Fortunately, it's unoccupied today. It's 7:42 in the morning, an hour since he and his crew spotted the fire. Pulga is close to the spot where the blaze broke out and the fire has entered the town.
Mackenzie and his crew will do all they can to save any structures in the Path of Blaze. Mackenzie's prediction has come true. This fire has quickly transformed into a major incident. Two miles west, the 800 residents of Con Cow have all been ordered to evacuate.
A downed power line in the town has trapped a bus. The cameras the emergency command center uses to track the fire are going out, presumably melted by the heat. No one's quite sure of the perimeter of the fire. Mackenzie stops in front of a yoga hut. A stack of firewood sits just in front of it. Mackenzie takes each piece and tosses it as far away from the hut as he can. He's starting to feel like his efforts are futile.
Sweat drips down his forehead. Mackenzie is jogging to the next cabin when his radio beeps. Dispatcher Beth Bowersox's voice comes through. Be aware, we have reports that the fire is now just east of Paradise.
McKenzie stopped short in front of an old wooden patio chair. He can't have heard that right. Paradise is seven miles from here. He's never seen a fire move that fast. His thoughts fill with dread. There are almost 27,000 people in Paradise, with limited roads they can take to safety.
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Charlie, knock it off. Sorry, Mr. McKay. Okay.
It's 7:43. The kids have been on edge all morning. McKay blames the loud wind and the orange sky. Reports have come through on his radio about a fire in Conkow. That's several miles away, and there are no reports that the fire will hit Paradise. Still, McKay runs through his evacuation training in his head as he drives. He makes the final turn and pulls up in front of Ponderosa Elementary School in eastern Paradise.
He gives each kid a high five as they exit the bus. "Alright, have a good day. Learn lots." When the bus is empty, McKay gets off to stretch his legs. The smell of cedar is overpowering. He sees a plume of smoke coming from the mountains just past the school. An ember floats through the air.
Adrenaline surges through McKay's body. This fire seems a lot closer than con cow. McKay grabs the attention of a teacher walking by. Are you seeing this? Are we evacuating? The teacher shakes her head. No orders yet. We're just keeping all the kids inside and away from the smoke for now. McKay nods. But as another ember floats through the air, he gets a bad feeling. He's going to stay put forever.
just in case. Cal Fire dispatcher Beth Bauer-Sox picks up the phone and makes a call. She needs every air tanker in Northern California deployed as soon as possible to help fight the camp incident.
Air tankers are planes that can carry and drop thousands of gallons of water or fire retardant. Under normal circumstances, they're not called on until 24 hours after a fire ignites. But Bowersox knows there's nothing normal about this fire. It's 7:50 in the morning. The reports coming out of Conkow are bad. Residents are fleeing, barely able to see where they're going due to the smoke.
Multiple buildings are burning, and a few injuries have been reported. One of the other dispatchers, who has been fielding 911 calls, yells out, I got a call from Dreher Drive in Paradise. They can see spot fires on Sawmill Peak. Bowersox is stunned. She lives in Paradise and knows Sawmill Peak is in the wilderness just over a mile east of town.
In less than 90 minutes, the fire has traveled six miles. Now, it's on the doorstep of paradise. She lunges for the radio and relays the information to the battalion chief.
The chief can't believe what he's hearing, but he's not taking any chances. After consulting with the incident commander, he orders three of Paradise's 14 zones to evacuate. Bowersox relays the order to the sheriff's department, who will take charge of activating the alert system and spreading the evacuation news to residents. As she gets off the radio, it hits her that her house and her three cats could soon be in danger.
Paradise police officer Rob Nichols exits his car and strides across the parking lot to the police station. It's just before 8 in the morning. Smoke fills the air, and the sky is rust red. The rookie he's training is waiting outside the station, carrying a fire extinguisher. Nichols smiles. He knows the sky looks scary, but the last he heard, the fire is miles away. Still, he's glad his rookie is prepared.
The rookie intercepts Nichols before he can get to the door. We're supposed to respond to a spot fire near the Taco Bell? Nichols feels his mouth go dry. Spot fires are caused by flying embers and sparks. The Taco Bell is right in the center of town. Maybe he was wrong about the fire being miles away. Let's go check it out. As they drive towards the Taco Bell, Nichols calls his wife.
He tells her to gather the kids and leave town. They don't live in any of the zones that have been ordered to evacuate, but Nichols isn't taking any chances. After a few minutes, they arrive at the location of the fire.
It becomes immediately clear to Nichols that this isn't a small spot fire. Flames are climbing up the trunk of an 80-foot ponderosa pine that towers over a neighborhood of about 30 homes. The dry wood and pine needles are causing sparks and embers to spray in the air and land on nearby buildings and trees. Nichols glances at the fire extinguisher in the rookie's hands. It
It doesn't stand a chance against a fire of this size. Nichols unclips his radio. This is Officer Nichols. We need a fire truck to our location immediately. There's no response. Nichols tries again. This is Officer Nichols. We have a major spot fire on our hands. We need assistance right away. Finally, the dispatcher comes through.
have no resources to send to your location. Nichols feels like he's been punched in the stomach. That means fires like this are happening all over town and they're going to keep spreading. There's only one thing he and the rookie can do. Get these residents out of town as soon as possible.
Rochelle Sanders rocks her newborn son Lincoln in her arms. She does her best to focus on the warmth of his skin against hers, the feel of his breath against her bicep, anything to distract her from the pandemonium she can hear in the hallway outside her hospital room. It's a little before 8 in the morning. Rochelle Sanders is in a hospital room
Rochelle knows there's a fire moving closer to Paradise, and they're preparing to evacuate the hospital. But she has no idea what the plan is for her and Lincoln. She wishes she could just leave with her husband, Chris, but she can barely walk after her C-section, and Lincoln's not ready to be discharged.
Chris returns to the room after stepping out to make a phone call. His face is white. It's crazy out there. The sky is filled with smoke. Embers are flying everywhere. He tells her how the hospital is in chaos. Rows of people in wheelchairs and gurneys are lining the halls, waiting for ambulances to evacuate them. Don't worry. Someone's going to come soon for you in Lincoln. Rochelle nods, trying not to feel overwhelmed.
Chris, have you heard from your mom? Is she evacuating? I don't know. Chris's mom is elderly and lives on her own. Rochelle can tell he's anxious about her. You should go and make sure she's safe. What? No. Rochelle nods. Lincoln and I will be fine. Are you sure? Rochelle takes his hand. Just go. She needs you. Chris bends down and kisses Sanders. Call me when you're in the ambulance.
Chris kisses the top of Lincoln's head before leaving. Rochelle watches him go. Suddenly feeling very alone, she wonders when it will be their turn to evacuate. She caresses Lincoln's cheek and hopes they haven't been forgotten.
Dispatcher Beth Bauer-Sox hunches over her radio, listening carefully. It's just past 8 o'clock. She's listening to a report from an air tanker pilot. His report is not good. The wind and turbulence are so strong that he's nearly lost control of the plane twice in the 12 minutes he's been in the air. He can't get low enough to drop the thousands of gallons of fire retardants he's carrying. He's going to have to turn around and head back to Chico.
But he leaves them with one final warning from his bird's eye view. "You're going to have a significant number of structures under threat in Paradise." Bowersox cringes. Paradise is her home, and this pilot has basically told her it's going to be destroyed. Her radio chirps to life again. A message comes in from the incident commander out in the field.
Bowersox is ordered to issue evacuations for four more zones in Paradise. Half of the town will now be required to clear out. But Bowersox hesitates. It doesn't feel like enough. She's kept an ear on the dispatchers fielding 911 calls. They're coming from all across Paradise. The fire is moving too fast. People are in danger in every zone. Bowersox's head swims.
A voice in her head tells her she needs to get everyone out, now. But to order a town-wide evacuation would be to flout the chain of command. Not once has she defied orders in her 15-year career. She could be suspended, docked pay, maybe even fired.
But she feels in her gut that if she doesn't take action, people will die. She takes a deep breath and turns to the dispatcher next to her. "Tell the Sheriff's Office to evacuate all zones." "That's not what the Division Chief ordered." "I don't care. Do it." The dispatcher hesitates for a second, then leans into her radio and orders all 27,000 Paradise residents to evacuate now.
Bauer-Sox's heart beats rapidly. She hopes it's not too late. This is episode one of our four-part series, Wildfire in Paradise. A quick note about our scenes. In most cases, we can't know exactly what was said, but everything is based on historical research.
If you'd like to learn more about this story, we recommend Fire in Paradise by Alistair G. and Danny Angiano, as well as Paradise by Lizzie Johnson. I'm your host, Cassie DePeckel. This episode is written by Austin Brackless. Our editor is Sean Raviv. Our audio engineers are Sergio Enriquez and Andrew Law.
Sound design is by Joe Richardson. Script consulting by Danny Angiano. Produced by Matt Almos and Emily Frost. Our senior producer is Andy Herman. Our managing producer is Tanja Thigpen. Our coordinating producer is Matt Gant. Our executive producers are Jenny Lauer-Beckman, Stephanie Jens, and Marshall Louis. For Wondery. Wondery.
Welcome to the Offensive Line. You guys, on this podcast, we're going to make some picks, talk some s**t, and hopefully make you some money in the process. I'm your host, Annie Agar.
So here's how this show's going to work, okay? We're going to run through the weekly slate of NFL and college football matchups, breaking them down into very serious categories like No offense. No offense, Travis Kelsey, but you've got to step up your game if Pat Mahomes is saying the Chiefs need to have more fun this year. We're also handing out a series of awards and making picks for the top storylines surrounding the world of football. Awards like the He May Have a Point Award for the wide receiver that's most justifiably bitter.
Is it Brandon Ayuk, Tee Higgins, or Devontae Adams? Plus, on Thursdays, we're doing an exclusive bonus episode on Wondery+, where I share my fantasy football picks ahead of Thursday night football and the weekend's matchups. Your fantasy league is as good as locked in. Follow the offensive line on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can access bonus episodes and listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery+.