Camp Fire Oral History- Angie Buckner, March 13, 2019

Stefani Baldivia: Okay. So, thank you for being here.

Angie Buckner: Sure!

S.B.: Can you tell me what is your name?

A.B.: My name is Angie Buckner.

S.B.: Okay, and what is your age and occupation?

A.B.: I'm 34years old and I am a social worker.

S.B.: Okay. Where did you live at the beginning of November in 2018?

A.B.: We lived on 1545 Bille Road, about a mile and a half outside of Magalia.

S.B.: Okay, and what did you do on Wednesday November the 7th, of 2018?

A.B.: Oh God, I don't even know -- um -- I was barely employed, both of us, me and my fianc were barely employed. So -- um -- probably worked from home, wrote some reports, played with the dogs -- um -- went to bed [laughs]. So yeah.

S.B.: Yeah, okay. Did you have any plans for Thursday November the 8th, of 2018?

A.B.: Um I think I had a new client that I was supposed to meet, but I don't -- 00:01:00um -- remember. I know that at that point in time I was still able to kind of wake up with the sun, because I was making my own schedule and I wasn't doing anything until the afternoon, so yeah.

S.B.: Okay. Alright so how did you become aware of the fire?

A.B.: Uh -- we saw it [laughs].

S.B.: Okay. Where were you when you became aware of the fire? Do you remember?

A.B.: Yeah, we were home.

S.B.: So you were inside?

A.B.: Yeah. I had woken up around -- whenever the sun came up -- so like around 6ish. And had gone to the bathroom, and looked outside hoping that it was going to be a really pretty day. So -- um -- normally I would have just laid back down and woken up -- you know -- in a few minutes, and then gotten up and made some coffee or whatever. And then I went back to bed, I woke up at 8:30 -- um -- and it was pitch black. And I was very confused because I had just woken up. So I went around and I heard that PG&E was gonna turn -- like -- cut power. So I went and I turned the bathroom light on and that was working, and then I went into 00:02:00our living room and looked outside and you -- there were no flames at that point but you could recognize the ground was red and the sky was black. So when I went back in and woke up my partner, I said "I'm pretty sure everything is on fire."

S.B.: Oh my God.

A.B.: So yeah, I don't know if you have any more questions about that.

S.B.: Did you know how close you were to the fire when you became aware of it?

A.B.: Well we had -- I started making phone calls to my family in Chico, like my dad. I turned the TV on -- which was super weird because when I turned the TV on there was nothing on the news -- nothing. They were doing like normal -- like local news stuff. So I talked to my dad on the phone, and he said the fire was in Pulga. And I was like Pulga is hella far away, we're fine. We've been evacuated before, like I'm sure we are just seeing some residual whatever; it's not a big deal. And that changed within like 20 minutes.

S.B.: So, did you see it, or smell it? Or did you hear propane tanks exploding?

A.B.: Yeah. So what happened was, we were like -- let's just go through normal evacuation stuff so -- social security cards, birth certificates. Dan went around and collected really important things like: family pictures -- his son passed away recently -- so his son's ashes. And then I was getting stuff for the dogs. So, fold up their dog crate and everything. And then, it became gradually more -- we ended up -- we woke up at 8:30 and ended up leaving at 8:45 because we heard propane tanks exploding.

S.B.: Wow.

A.B.: And then we saw flaming chunks of whatever flying past the windows. And so we went from like "let's maybe make some coffee to go" to like "we have to leave right now."

S.B.: So what did you do exactly after you were aware of the fire? You kind of already covered it.

A.B.: Well we just decided to go, and we picked up [laughs] -- I got more stuff 00:04:00of the dogs' than for myself. I packed kind of like an overnight bag, but it was like shitty clothes that I never wear and dirty underwear. But I got everything for the dogs -- I got their meds, I got their crate, I got their food. Um -- I picked up my poor guinea pig and like threw her in the front seat of the car. Because by the time we decided we have to leave right now, it sounded like a war zone -- just bang bang bang bang bang -- one after the other. We thought it was gunshots, we thought that people were already looting or something. And then when I went outside to the carport to get all of the animals in the car -- the wind -- I would guess maybe 60 miles an hour of just this -- like -- kind of hot and cold at the same time, and just the ash everywhere. It was difficult to see. So he got in one vehicle, and I got in another vehicle with the animals. And the last thing I said to him was "Please lock up, I think that people are looting." And then I started trying to evacuate. It took probably 15 minutes for somebody to let me out of my driveway.

S.B.: Oh my gosh -- um -- okay. So you covered a couple of things already. The 00:05:00catalyst for your evacuation was the explosion of propane.

A.B.: Yeah, that was pretty much it.

S.B.: Okay, and you say how -- approximately how much time passed between the time you were aware of the fire and time you evacuated?

A.B.: About 15 minutes.

S.B.: So you had an evacuation plan? You guys had documents.

A; Yeah we did. So we were evacuated last year maybe -- earlier -- it was actually fine. Nothing happened, but it was right after -- oh it was right after the [Oroville] dam thing.

S.B.: Ahh.

A.B.: So I had friends that were evacuated from the dam, and they were like "Okay so you need to make a list and put stuff where you know where it is." Because I was grabbing like a 50 pound bag of kitty litter and nothing else, and just weird things that you do. So I put some personal documents in a zip lock bag, like my social security, birth certificate all that stuff, and insurance information. So I knew where that was and I grabbed it. My fianc on the other 00:06:00hand, did none of those things [laugh]. So he had to get all of that stuff replaced afterward. So, yeah.

S.B.: So did that change though when you realized the fire was upon you?

A.B.: Oh yeah!

S.B.: And the fire moved so quickly?

A.B.: Oh yeah, definitely. Everything that I had -- like -- we were talking-- like I said, making coffee and like let's take our time, there's no reason to freak out. And then it was like we don't know -- things are exploding, it's obviously a lot closer than we thought it was, so.

S.B.: So is there anything you wished you had packed?

A.B.: Oh yeah! [clears throat] Oh yeah, no if I had time I would have grabbed -- I had this collection of elephants that I had been collecting since I was a little girl. I didn't grab any of those. I paint so -- um -- everything that I've painted from elementary school up until I finished my fine arts work 6 going on -- [laughs] -- yeah some of my clothes, which I have since gotten over 00:07:00a lot of the clothes thing. But when we got to Chico -- which I just now realized -- I had salt water sandals and a snow coat on, and I didn't have any other shoes [laughs]. So like practical things, like I really wish I had grabbed another pair of shoes that would have been good.

S.B.: What is something you absolutely did not want to leave behind that you did bring with you?

A.B.: Umm -- uhh -- well my animals. I think under a less urgent evacuation, we would have left the guinea pig there. And I'm really really -- I mean I thought she was gonna die on the way down because I hurled her into the car, and she didn't move for like 3 days afterward but I'm glad we didn't leave her at home. I know a lot of people who lost their pets.

S.B.: So you have how many animals?

A.B.: I have a guinea pig and two dogs.

S.B.: What was their behavior like during your preparations to leave?

A.B.: Well they were -- uhh -- running around kind of freaking out, barking. I wanted to let them out to go to the bathroom, and -- my fianc didn't tell me this until a couple weeks later but -- he said that before I saw anything he was seeing -- like -- flames hitting the coffee table outside. But he didn't want to say anything to me because I was like "we should let them out to go pee before we go" and he was like "no no no no no no, just get back in the car." He didn't tell me why. Our border collie -- like -- puked in the car [laughs]. So -- um -- now my pit bull -- well that's a long story -- but she's on trazodone now and she has PTSD. Yeah, so she was in some serious dog fights. She was on 600 milligrams of trazodone a day for her anxiety, now she's down to 200.

S.B.: How old is your border collie?

A.B.: They're both around 5, yeah.

S.B.: I'm sorry about that.

A.B.: Our border collie has actually displayed tremendous resilience. He was abused when we got him, he's a rescue, he used to nip at people, and now he's like -- I don't know if he needed like a trust test or something -- and so we took him with us, and he's been with us this whole time. So he's like -- like I said a different dog -- for the better.

S.B.: Wow.

A.B.: It's really weird. I thought for sure we were gonna have to put him down or something for this, but he's like playing with babies and yeah.

S.B.: So how did you feel about leaving your home?

A.B.: Um -- [clears throat] -- at the time, it was really kind of a dissociative experience. Like, there was -- I had remembered backing out -- trying to back out of our street and I was on the phone with my mom, and I just started screaming for people to let me out. And she was like "you need to calm down", and I was like "okay I'm hanging up the phone." After that I remember being 00:10:00really sad, and I was kind of just looking around at all the people, and the animals, and the people running. It was kind of in slow motion. It came in -- kind of -- waves.

S.B.: What was the energy like on your street?

A.B.: It was pretty calm.

S.B.: What did you see around you?

A.B.: Just people in similar situations to me, cars full of shit, full of animals. For the most part, people were very polite. Letting you in and out when they could -- I mean you have to keep in mind -- what was a two-lane street became a three-lane street. And then it was a four-lane street, and then a six-lane street because everyone was going in the same direction. But for the most part, if you needed to get over, as soon as there was room people would let you in. People were not really smiling at each other, but there was a lot of head-nodding going on -- like we're going to get through this. It was kind of a like a silent camaraderie, which is what I thought. It wasn't anything at all like you see in a movie where people are like -- you know -- stabbing each other 00:11:00[laughs], or stealing vehicles or things like that. I know that one of my friends that lived about a mile away from us was able to give a woman some gas, because she was running out of gas on the skyway, so yeah.

S.B.: So who was with you in the car when you left?

A.B.: Just me and my animals. I was by myself.

S.B.: You said you had a fianc though, who was preparing with you to leave.

A.B.: Yeah. He took a van -- because he owns his own landscaping business, so he loaded up the van with all the work equipment. And then he actually thought to grab -- I'm so glad he did this -- filled up this giant Tupperware -- like one of those Rubbermaid things -- with all of the framed pictures of like family. Like so when we moved into our rental, it was the first thing I did -- you know -- put all the pictures up. And there was some that I really -- I did not know to grab at all, so. But yeah we were separated for about 5 hours.

S.B.: Okay -- um -- what was your route to exit? What streets did you take?

A.B.: Yeah, I know exactly where I went because I was gonna run out of gas. So I tried to follow the gas stations. I had an eighth of a tank of gas. It was one of those Wednesdays where I was like "I'm gonna totally get gas in the morning -- I'll just get gas in the morning." And I got in the car, and I was like "oh, it's almost on empty." So I just -- I went down Bille [Road], I wanted to -- Dan somehow got ahead of me -- and we were on the phone a lot of the time. And he kept telling me "go down Billie, keep going down Billie", but I couldn't keep going anywhere. I was in the middle lane, and traffic was going to the left. So I had to go to the left. [clears throat] There was a gas station on Elliot at Clark, and I spent my whole rest of the time on Clark moving over to the far right to try to get to the gas station. That's when I saw explosions on the side 00:13:00of the road, when I was on Clark. It was very bizarre. So I got out of the car, at one point when the traffic was stalled, to check to see if there was smoke, to see if the gas station was functional. By the time I got close to the corner, I realized it was not, it was shut off. And so, at this point Dan and I were back on the phone together and he told me to go down Elliott, because there was another one on Elliott and Skyway. It was a Valero. And he was like "There's cars in the parking lot, there's cars in the parking lot. So I -- like -- uh -- was waiting -- this was only one lane of traffic, so at some point I was like "fuck it", and just went down the wrong lane. I was like "if I get hit, I get hit" [laughs]. It wasn't that big of a deal at this point.

S.B.: Could you see beyond in front of you?

A.B.: No. No, you couldn't see anything but lights, so. I actually took a picture on Clark Road, and it looks like worse than 3 in the morning. You can't see -- you can maybe see like three cars ahead of you and that was only because they had their lights on. So anyway, I didn't get gas [laughs].

S.B.: What was going through your mind the whole time?

A.B.: Um -- I was actually thinking about, if I wasn't able to get gas where on the Skyway, could I park where I would be able to get out. That was -- that was my plan.

S.B.: Because the car might die?

A.B.: Uh-huh. And then I was gonna have to get out, I was gonna put my guinea pig in my coat, and strap my dogs' leashes to the pajama pants I was wearing -- I didn't have a good plan [laughs] -- and then get somewhere with my phone to where I could be seen, and someone could come get me with a helicopter. Not a good plan.

S.B.: Did you see or meet any first responders?

A.B.: I did.

S.B.: In your route to exit?

A.B.: Yeah, when I went to the Valero on Skyway. I got out and it was all first responders, but they were unmarked vehicles -- like government vehicles. So I got out and I saw that it wasn't on -- like the machine wasn't on -- but I pushed my credit card in anyway. And so it wasn't working, so I yelled at this 00:15:00dude "Hey, is this turned on?" And he was like "no, you need to get out of here." And I was like "But I'm gonna run out of gas, and I have dogs in my car." And he was like "You need to get out of here." That's when I was like, okay, so I just got back in my car. And then when I got back in my car, I was gonna call my mom and my fianc and tell them I couldn't get gas; and that's when cell reception went down.

S.B.: Around what time was that?

A.B.: I don't know, maybe 10? 11?

S.B.: So what did you see first responders doing during your evacuation?

A.B.: Um -- well, I mean I -- that was the only one I talked to, and they looked like they were kind of pow-wowing. But when I got down, there were civilians out like trying to direct traffic. And then when I got closer down to where the road was actually on fire between Skyway and Neal -- um -- there were a lot of first responders putting themselves in the middle of traffic. Like trying to get people out, when people would go in a different direction. I tried to go -- Dan 00:16:00had told me -- because he went through first, and so he called me -- my cell phone had come back on -- and he was like "where are you?" So I told him where I was, and he said, "Okay you're gonna get to Skyway and it's completely on fire, so it's gonna be really scary and it's gonna be really hot." That was the point when I really started freaking out. Like, "OH my God, I'm gonna die in my car with my dogs." So he was telling me like, "Do you know what to do?" And I was like" what do you mean?" And he was like "if it gets too hot, turn your air conditioner all the way up, and if you have water in the car, dump it over yourself and the animals." Which I found out later you're not supposed to do, but it's ok because I have a 2018 Subaru; it wasn't hot at all. But he was like, "Neal Road is not on fire, so maybe you can turn left and go down Neal." So at this point I was like this is what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna go down Neal and I'm gonna take the long way down, but the first responder wouldn't let me over. So I ended up just driving -- just tailgating the person in front of you -- everybody's going you know like 5 miles an hour, but I found out later when I 00:17:00got to Chico that maybe 10 minutes after that a bunch of propane tanks exploded on Neal and people got trapped there. So if I had succeeded in that plan, I might have had to get out and run.

S.B.: So it seems like you had a lot of support from your fianc over the phone, did you see any friends or anybody you knew while you were doing your evacuation drive?

A.B.: Not that I recall. I don't remember -- yeah -- I don't.

S.B.: Okay. What else did you see or hear on your journey to evacuate?

A.B.: Um -- [clears throat] -- I remember seeing people walking. Some people were running, and some people were walking, but I thought that was really -- because you just think "Well, maybe it's not that bad." So you look for evidence that other people aren't taking it seriously to make yourself feel better. And I'm like "If that dude's on a bike ride, it's probably fine." I'm like -- but 00:18:00then a few minutes later you see someone running for their lives, and you're like "Well that can't be good." Like at one point -- it was probably the most surreal thing on the whole drive -- is when I was on Clark Road kind of where Safeway used to be, I had the radio on really soft and I wasn't on the phone, like at some point I just gotten off the phone with everybody -- because you know I'm driving -- and I looked over in slow motion probably like 100 yards away from the street lights just blew up. Like one after the other, there was no fire around, and I was like "I don't know what that means" but I was very calm. So yeah, I thought that was very unusual.

S.B.: When you were on the phone with your fianc or your mom, or any other family, what were they conveying to you? You said at one point your fianc was giving you instructions of what might happen, and what you should do?

A.B.: I had a couple -- I had a lot of people calling me. Most of the calls I ignored, because I didn't know what to say. Like people from -- like my best friend who lives in Brooklyn like heard about it, and I was like "I don't know what to tell you, so I'll call you back in a couple of hours, because I have no idea what is going on." My mom was freaking out, then we had a fight because she was upsetting me even more. Which is common for moms I'm pretty sure, I don't think that's unusual [clears throat]. But pretty much -- I mean it was mostly my mom and my fianc. Everybody else I talked to was pretty calm. They just kept asking things like "Where are you now? Where are you now? Where are you now? What do you see?" Those were real hard questions to answer. I was like "I don't know where I am." They were like "Which direction are you headed?" And I was like, "I don't know, down?" [laughs].

S.B.: When you -- cell phone reception went out, how did that make you feel?

A.B.: I -- [clears throat] -- I got really -- like I said it was between freak out and like totally Zen, there was no middle ground. So when my cell phone died, I actually slammed it down -- because it was my phone, it was dead, there was no reception -- slammed it down on the center console, and I had a bruise on my finger from slamming it down. So the thing was I was still getting text messages, I just couldn't call anybody. And so my phone was just blowing up. And I have that thing where it's set to your car like a Bluetooth, so it's just -- my car screen was just lighting up, and all these sounds were -- and I couldn't do anything about it because I was trying to focus. Yeah that's when I started making plans to just get off -- this was before I knew that Skyway was on fire. I thought maybe I'll get to the lookout point, maybe me and a bunch of other people will be huddled together, and we could be rescued together.

S.B.: So when you got to Skyway and it was on fire, you had been prepared for that?

A.B.: Yeah.

S.B.: But how did it -- did that preparation help you through it?

A.B.: Um -- I -- in retrospect I'm glad that I was told it was on fire, definitely, but you don't -- I don't think there is a way to prepare for that. I really don't. Um -- it was kind of indescribable. It was like -- it went from, so, in upper Paradise where we lived it was like pitch black. And then when I got to lower Skyway, like downtown area, the sun started to come out again, and it was like "oh I made it out, now I just got to get to Chico; it's gonna be fine" And then like 15 minutes later, it started to -- the clouds -- the smoke started creeping in again and I go, "Oh there's a fire down below." And that was one of the worst parts, because like you're driving, you can't go really fast because you can't see anything. And there are trees falling around you; I 00:22:00thought the tires were gonna melt -- so I forgot the question. [laughs]

S.B.: It's okay! I think I was asking you did you feel prepared and you said?

A.B.: No.

S.B.: There was no way to prepare for that?

A.B.: No. Someone could tell you what it's like and tell you what to do. I just don't think so, I really don't.

S.B.: What obstacles or barriers did you face during your evacuation? I think you already listed a few.

A.B.: Yeah. It was just the sheer amount of people. It was just -- it was just so -- it's kinda like when you live in Paradise for a really long time you're like "where did they come from [laughs]? Where were you hiding [laughs]? Like where did all you people live?" Like it was so many people were out, and getting gas. But I really do think that like they talk about the evacuation plan and Paradise has a plan blah blah blah. Um -- I think that there shouldn't have been 00:23:0030,000 people living in a mountain area that small. Because of course Pentz Road was gonna catch on fire, of course Skyway was gonna catch on fire. You have 30,000 people compacted into this a little area, and you think nothing bad is gonna happen? So -- um -- yeah we're not going back.

S.B.: Okay. Where did you go immediately after you evacuated?

A.B.: Well we knew where we were going. Because our pit bull -- well this was really a few days later -- but she only got along with a couple of other dogs, and those are my brothers' dogs. They have a spare bedroom in the backyard, and so I called them in the morning at like 8:30 and I was like "I'm not sure if we're being evacuated, but I'll let you know. I called him from the road and was like "The whole town is on fire I think, so we're definitely gonna come and stay at least one night with you." And he was like "That's fine." So we went straight to my brother's house.

S.B.: Where does he live?

A.B.: Um, Sarah Avenue.

S.B.: In Chico?

A.B.: In Chico, yeah.

S.B.: Okay. So you went there because of your animals?

A.B.: There was a reason, and it was because of the animals, yeah.

S.B.: Okay. Um -- what do you recall feeling when you arrived there?

A.B.: Uh -- well the first thing I did actually was I went to the gas station.

S.B.: You did?

A.B.: I went to the gas station and filled up the gas tank.

S.B.: So that was the first thing you did when you got clear of the fire?

A.B.: Yes, so I lied you.

S.B.: That's okay!

A.B.: I went to the gas station first.

S.B.: You had a goal, which was your brother's house.

A.B.: So [laughs] yeah. But I was like --

S.B.: You had a material need.

A.B.: But I was kinda like -- you know -- what if this gets worse? What if I get to my brother's house, and something else catches on fire and I still don't have any gas? So I got to the gas station and it was all people from Paradise. It was just obvious. Like for the next couple of months, and we went out to dinner somewhere you didn't even have to ask. Like everybody that lost their home had this like same expression. So there were people who were just like I had my pajamas on, and I had ash all over my face. Everybody was just filling up their 00:25:00gas tank in silence -- uh -- so. At the time we were trying to watch the credit card bill, but I was like "fuck it, I'm just gonna put all of this on the credit card." And then I went to my brother's house.

S.B.: Um -- so how long do you think it took you to get clear of the fire? How many hours or minutes?

A; Well by the time -- to get down to the bottom of the Skyway whether or not there was a fire, was about 4 and a half hours.

S.B.: And then after you got gasoline, where did you go next?

A.B.: To my brother's house.

S.B.: Wow. Do you have any recollections about how you felt when you arrived?

A.B.: Um -- I was really stressed out. I mean that's kinda -- I just like had the kind of feeling of dread and anxiety. I was also really like -- kind of like goal oriented. We need to get in here, we need to get the dogs settled, I need to take a shower, we need to eat something, we need a lot of beer like [laughs] 00:26:00-- this is what's gonna happening right now. But then it was like there were also moments of panic, like I opened the back hatch of the car and I didn't know Buster the dog -- the border collie -- had thrown up. So I opened the back hatch of the car and dog vomit just poured onto my hands, and I started freaking out and screaming at my brother like "These are my only pants! These are my only pants! What am I supposed to do?" And he was like "We have a washing machine, throw on some of my wife's pants, it's gonna be okay." And I was like "you're right," and then in my head I was like "I'm gonna go home in a couple of days and get my pants. It's gonna be fine. I can make this work for a couple of days." And I think that, that really kept me going for the rest of the day, where it was like, "It's just a couple days. I can be without my makeup and my earrings, and like whatever else I forgot for a couple days."

S.B.: So what affected what you ate during that first night? Do you remember what you ate?

A.B.: No. We got some kind of takeout, and I remember all of the adults just got 00:27:00trashed. Like -- [laughs] -- it was not responsible. It was not, but we started -- we got there and like I -- the neighbors were coming out to talk to us, and I got the dogs inside and settled. I put some of my sister-in-law's pants on, and I just went back inside and collapsed on their front yard. I was smoking a cigarette and someone -- one of my friends had called me, and she was from Chico, and she was like "Ginger and Michael's house burnt down." And I was like "Well they live 2 miles away from me, so like don't tell me stuff like that. Like I'm sorry they lost their house, but my house is probably fine." And then like throughout the evening we were like getting drunk and watching the news -- which is always a good idea. And it was like every 15 minutes, 50% of the town is gone, 20% -- they were just adding it up. So by the time we went to bed it was like 80% of the town and I had like a friend coming over -- a lot of friends 00:28:00stopped by that night -- and it just like kinda hit me. And I just looked at her and I was like "My house is probably gone" and she was like "Yeah I know" [laughs]. So -- uh no I don't remember what I ate, probably didn't eat actually. I think I lost about 10 pounds those first two weeks, so another blessing I guess.

S.B.: Whew. So we're gonna shift a bit and talk about shelter now.

A.B.: Yeah.

S.B.: Um -- so the question is, how did you find a place to sleep that first night?

A; Well we had family, yeah.

S.B.: So you slept at your brother's house on Thursday, if I remember right. Who was there with you?

A.B.: Um -- well when we went to bed it was just my brother, his wife, their 3 year old daughter, their three dogs, me, Dan, the guinea pig [laughs], and our two dogs. But over the course of that evening, my mom was there, my dad was 00:29:00there, friends came over, and it was kind of a -- it was nice I guess. But it was a lot.

S.B.: So that's really the question next, which is -- uh -- what was the atmosphere like? Where you sheltered?

A.B.: Um -- well it depends on when. We lived there for three months.

S.B.: So, let's just focus on the first night.

A.B.: Okay. Um -- I don't know, it was surreal. Because we -- there was this like component where everybody knew this was really really bad, but no one wanted to say it was really really bad. Because once you say it out loud -- you know -- then it's true. Like maybe the news is wrong or whatever. Um -- but then, I don't remember what time it was when they started evacuating Chico -- like parts of South Chico I think. And at this point we were like wasted. It was like 11 o'clock at night I was gonna go to bed, like I was gonna take my PTSD 00:30:00nap but then -- you know -- Chico's probably gonna be on fire. And then it was like, okay so then my brother gets up and he puts sprinklers on his roof, so Dan and him are on the roof putting sprinklers up, and me and my sister-in-law are like drunkenly packing stuff, and talking about like "we stopped drinking for an hour". Which is totally unreasonable, and I was like "well they're not gonna be looking for drunk drivers right? Like if the whole town's evacuating again, maybe if we drive slow we'll be okay." So it was really like the whole -- I think the whole thing was a natural response to common anxiety, which is that you -- there has to be an element of self-preservation. Because if everybody -- if Dan and I were freaking out, and my brother was freaking out, and everybody else was freaking out. I don't where we would've been, we might not have made it [laughs] through the night, so yeah.

S.B.: So where you had planned on sheltering you had now gotten warnings of evacuation for that space, and that began like a new sort of cycle of "let's get moving?"

A.B.: Yeah. So we ultimately decided not to. We stayed up and looked at the news, and looked at all the there's -- you can look at real-time maps for evacuation zones while you're looking at the maps. And so we were kinda like doing the math like "Okay it's this time, if it keeps moving at this rate it's gonna be this time." So I had set my alarm for 1 o'clock in the morning, and then I had an alarm set for 2:30 in the morning so I could check to see if we were gonna be evacuated. And then finally at 4 in the morning, we still weren't being evacuated, and a lot of the evacuation warnings had been lifted, so then I was like "Okay we can go to bed now, we're gonna be okay."

S.B.: Wow, okay. Um -- so what influenced what you ate in the weeks after that? After the first night?

A.B.: Whatever was effortless was the big thing. Like I didn't -- uh -- we 00:32:00didn't cook -- we got pizza, my dad paid for pizza -- that's what we did, my dad came over and bought us pizza that night. And I don't think I ate anything, I don't think I ate pizza after that [laughs] but yeah.

S.B.: So what do you think influenced that?

A.B.: Just stress, just stress. I don't eat when I'm super anxious so -- um -- I just didn't feel like eating. It didn't sound good, it didn't look good.

S.B.: Okay. So you said you stayed with your brother for how many months?

A.B.: For three months. We had just got our rental in the 1st of February.

S.B.: Okay. How did you feel about sheltering there at your brother's house?

A.B.: So the only thing that was really really awful about it was, the dog fighting. So -- uh -- my pit bull and my brother's pit bull used to be buddies, and I think what happened was we were there for a couple days and then they were 00:33:00kinda like "Okay this isn't like a barbecue, like they are still in my space. And one night I was getting ready for bed, and they had had some scuffles but we were there to break it up, and it wasn't that big of a deal -- and this one evening, they always wait until like 11 o'clock at night to do shit like this but -- they got in this big fight. And he's 90 pounds -- or he was 90 pounds -- and she's 60 pounds, and so he grabbed onto her front shoulder and shook it and so we had to take her to the vet in the middle of the night. We were calling the vet's office in Valley Oak, and I was just sobbing. I was like "My dog just got in a fight, and my house just burned down, and I don't really know what I'm doing!" And so they were like "You can come in and bring her in" and they had so many animals to triage from the fire that they had to keep her overnight to give her stitches. They gave her some anxiety meds or whatever and then -- um -- but 00:34:00the fights kept happening, so we -- um -- put up a -- they had a little dog gate -- we actually had our own living space but there was no door there, and had like a little flimsy dog gate. And -- um -- I put a blanket over it so they couldn't see each other. It seemed to work for a couple of weeks I think. And then this one day -- they had a couple -- but this was a really really really really bad fight. I came home for lunch, and my routine was I would come in -- and our living room where we were staying opened up to the backyard -- so their dogs had free roam in the house all day when we weren't home. So when I came home, I was home for about 15-20 minutes to let them out, and then I went to the bathroom -- there's a dog door -- then I came out of the bathroom and my brother's pit bull has his head over the side of the gate, and he starts looking. He starts to growl, and so I was like "Get down". So then I run over, 00:35:00and at this point my dog Penny sees him and starts lunging toward the gate -- like ferociously. So -- um -- I grab her collar and yank her back, and I'm kinda straddling her -- holding her between my legs -- and my brother's dog takes the blanket in his mouth and rips it off, and comes charging through the wooden gate. It was like -- he looked like a shark -- this 90 pound pit bull comes charging through the gate and they just start fighting. And I still had her between my legs, and so I'm screaming bloody murder. The only person home is my brother's 70 year old step-mother -- not step-mother -- his mother-in-law is outside with my niece in the front yard. She's kind of hard of hearing, and what's a 70 year old gonna do in the middle of a pit bull fight? So I'm just screaming bloody murder and I end up making a choice -- I know you're not supposed to do this -- but -- uh -- they do the clenching thing where they 00:36:00clench and shake and I had her -- she's just right here between my knees and I'm like "You know, I'm either gonna have a broken hand or a dead dog if I don't do something." And so I stuck my hands in between their jaws and at this point the mother -- my brother's mother-in-law comes in and she's able to get them apart. My dog was okay this time, but my brother's dog ended up getting stitches in his face, and in his side, and in his back leg. And then when they took him to the vet, they detected an arrhythmia so they weren't able to fully sedate him for his stitches, so they said if they couldn't do a local anesthetic he probably wouldn't wake up. So they were able to do it, but a month later he collapsed and died in the park. If it weren't for the dogs, it would've been okay.

S.B.: What time -- at what point in your stay was the first fight?

A.B.: Like three or four days.

S.B.: Oh wow.

A.B.: So we were like -- we house sat anywhere we could. So around Christmas and New Year's, we would go and stay somewhere for three weeks, like house sit for someone for three weeks. But there was always this sense of dread. So after that last fight is when we went to the vet, and they put her on trazodone and upped the dosage. Like I need her to sleep, because she was just whining about everything at first like 24 hours a day, so. But also I got to bond with my 3 year old -- I would only get to see my niece like once a month before this, and then I moved in with her. I just took her to the pool the other day and she was like "We're best friends", which never would've happened if we hadn't had to move in with them.

S.B.: Wow!

A.B.: [laughs]

S.B.: Well you have blessing there.

A.B.: [laughs]

S.B.: Yeah, is there anything else you wanna share about your shelter experience?

A.B.: Um -- Well I think that we -- I know that we were really fortunate, I know that we were. Um -- and even though it was really stressful with the dogs, I'm 00:38:00glad we decided to stick it out and didn't try. We had some offers for like an RV, and stuff like that. I'm really glad that we stayed somewhere with proper indoor plumbing and a door because I have friends that are still living in RVs and I don't think it's doing anything for anybody's mental health, when you were a homeowner a few months ago and now you're living in a trailer. So -- um -- I hope that -- I know that it's not gonna get resolved quickly, but I hope for the people that are still really really really struggling with housing. And also there's a -- you know I have some guilt with that too, because we got priority for our rental because our house burnt down, and we have insurance. So I was like "Here's a bunch of money, please let us live in your house." And people without insurance, people that were already housing insecure before the fire, like we just booted all of them out of our way.

S.B.: So I want to talk about recovery actually. Can you share with me your 00:39:00experience -- there are some people who owned or rented and they had documentation of insurance to rely upon, can you share with me your experience working with the insurance company?

A.B.: So it was actually incredibly easy -- um -- it was incredibly easy. And most people that I've talked have had a fairly easy time with it. I only know like two people who've had to itemize. So we thought we were gonna have to itemize all of our belongings and do all this stuff, but I think somewhere around the middle of the second month or the first month we just got a call and they were like "We're just giving you everything."

S.B.: When did --

A.B.: We didn't have to deal with it, yeah.

S.B.: When did you find out your home was no longer there?

A.B.: Um -- it was before that dogfight. It was about so -- uh -- actually I know someone that works for PG&E that sent us a photograph over text. I had sent them my address, and we were actually at a Friendsgiving party -- um -- wearing 00:40:00my sister-in-law's clothes like [laughs] trying to have fun. And then somewhere around 9 o'clock at night I got pictures texted to me, and the first picture -- so our house had a rock wall facade in the front -- um -- and she was like, the woman who sent the pictures, was like "Did you have a PT Cruiser?" So we had a PT Cruiser that burned. And so she was like "It was around the address, and this is the PT Cruiser in another picture." And we were like "We don't know anyone with a rock wall." I thought this is not my house. So then Dan grabs my phone from me and he's like, "That's where the front door used to be." And then he zooms in and you can see where our barbeque grill used to be in the backyard because you can just see straight through the property. So, yeah I saw a picture of it.

S.B.: Wow -- I'm -- sorry. So some people though, don't have any documentation 00:41:00to rely upon, could you share about that recovery experience that you heard of?

A.B.: Oh absolutely. So I went to -- uh -- I needed like a jacket that wasn't like for snow and stuff like that, and I also kinda wanted to see if there were any volunteer opportunities. I ended up not volunteering as much as I wanted to, because it was triggering. But I went to -- uh -- the Elks Lodge -- is that where? Yeah the Elks Lodge -- um -- because they had a big wait of people outside, and I ended up chatting with quite a few people. And a lot of them were either renting or they owned their own trailers. When you own a trailer, you're not a part of the plan to have insurance on it. You just park it, and the park is supposed to have insurance and so the people aren't required to have insurance so I think a lot of the experience was "We owned this trailer, we live in the mountains, this is our thing, like we're going to live here, leave us alone, everything's gonna be fine." And so I talked to this couple who had lived in their trailer for a long time, and they just never got insurance. And then 00:42:00where they were staying was in a shelter, they were in their sixties, they lost all their animals. And I mean -- I couldn't like -- I talked to a few people who didn't have family that was local, or at all, and didn't have insurance. And the only reason that I didn't have to quit my job or like be committed was because I had all of the support from family and friends, and that cushioning for insurance. And so the first thing we did when we got this rental was get insurance with few possessions that we have.

S.B.: In your new home?

A.B.: Hm-mm.

S.B.: Um -- so did you receive any rental assistance through FEMA?

A.B.: We didn't qualify for FEMA, but we did get money through Red Cross.

S.B.: Okay. What are your long term plans?

A.B.: Oh we're gonna buy again here, so.

S.B.: In Chico.

A.B.: Yup as soon as we -- we're living in Chapmantown right now, and I really like that neighborhood. My fianc just got a job at Sierra Nevada. So I'm still looking -- I'm working part -- I hate my job -- [laughs] but I'm looking at some places that I like, but I have some time. So we're just gonna chill out. It feels really nice to do normal people things for a while. Everyone's like "What are you gonna buy? What are you gonna do next?" And I'm like "You know what I'm gonna do, I gonna go to work, and I'm gonna come home and I'm gonna vacuum [laughs]. And then I'm gonna watch the documentary about Ted Bundy that I'm not done with, and then you know play with the dogs and have a glass of wine." Do normal people things, but we had talked about leaving. Um -- it was actually one of the first things we had talked about like "Let's just leave; let's abandon ship and get out." But I think that in light of everything that's just happened, leaving the support systems that have been so instrumental -- um -- when all this happened, would be a huge mistake for our wellbeing. A huge mistake, so.

S.B.: When you talked about leaving, where did you think would be a good place?

A.B.: Anywhere. We had talked about Sacramento because there were more job opportunities down there. We had also talked about going out of state. We talked about -- we wanted to hang onto the property in Paradise for a couple more years by either rent it out and sell it and I was looking at PH.D programs, so maybe it was like we can just do that sooner. Let's I don't know, go to Philadelphia. But these were all fleeting like --

S.B.: Conversations?

A.B.: Yea totally. But then five minutes later we would be like "let's start a commune in the trees" -- like there was nothing really -- there wasn't any actual planning going on, so.

S.B.: Um -- do you still own your property?

A.B.: Hm-mm.

S.B.: So you're just?

A.B.: We're gonna sell it.

S.B.: you're planning to sell?

A.B.: Yeah, we're gonna sell it. There's still a lot to iron out, but we just got a letter in the mail the other day about like the water, so. If we want to turn the water back on, we're responsible for paying to hook it back up, which 00:45:00is like $5,000. And so there's a lot of -- I've never sold a burnt property before, so there's a lot of logistical things to figure out so we're gonna wait. We're just gonna chill out, let them do the clean-up, and probably within the next year we're gonna sell it.

S.B.: Is there anything else you wanna share about recovery?

A.B.: Um -- I feel like there was a lot of misinformation given. It was really shitty that they let people back up there, and then had to have them evacuate. I think it's really dangerous and irresponsible to have had people -- our neighbors across the street lost a lot of their property, but not their actual home like their workshop and some other stuff. We went up there -- when we first when back up there with our hazmat suits and it stinks. The smell, like the sewage and death. And there were kids riding a quad in the front yard across the 00:46:00street not wearing any protective gear. And they were allowed to live there because their house was still standing. Like adults do your thing, if you wanna go and drink Benzene or whatever it is you're doing up there, that your thing, but if you have children -- I just feel there should have been way more regulation for letting people back up there because I feel like it's gonna be another -- I don't know -- a 9/11 thing where people are gonna be coming up with tumors in the next two years. So -- um -- that's all I can think about right now.

S.B.: That's okay. What are you worried about right now? It's March.

A.B.: Uh -- I'm worried -- well I'm worried about a lot of things locally. I don't think that Chico and the surrounding areas know what just happened to it. I think that there's a lot of -- people tend to go for easy solutions and easy reasons for things. Um -- there's already conversations a while ago about 00:47:00deserving versus undeserving. I mean like me having to show proof of residency to get things. For a while I was looking for dog food. It just felt so -- it just felt so weird, and like I had gotten some nice clothes donated to me so some people were still in their pajamas looking haggard and their house had just burnt down, and I was just going to work. So there was really like this -- this dynamic of like how big is your pain compared to my pain? Where does your pain come from? And I think those are the wrong conversations to be having right now or ever. I think that we had these issues in the community before, it just became exacerbated and now we're doing it with survivors. Like I get treated differently because we had insurance, we were responsible. And we really weren't. I mean we were, but there was a lot of privilege that came with that. 00:48:00We both are well-educated, we both come from -- you know -- not money, but families that were supportive financially. We had savings accounts, we had inheritance you know what I mean? And so all these things added up for us that -- you know we didn't own a great house -- it wasn't like we lived in a mansion or anything like that, we just owned it. And so just because things worked out a certain way, doesn't mean that we're any more or less deserving or anyone else is more or less deserving, so -- um.

S.B.: Do you feel like people in Chico, and other support organizations like the state or like you said Red Cross, are segregating society and survivors in that way?

A.B.: I think so. I mean I'm okay with the fact that we didn't get an FEMA money, we're gonna be fine. I mean we have a lot, the GoFundMe, the insurance money like we were okay. But I do think that they had made the hoops really 00:49:00complicated. Like it's like dealing with -- from what I heard it's like dealing with the insurance, except worse. We went to the FEMA center just before we knew we didn't qualify, and it was like the DMV meets like a -- I don't know -- a methadone clinic. It was awful, just awful. S.B.: What was awful about it?

A.B.: They make you pull a number, you sit in a big room with a bunch of coughing cold people with PTSD. And then they usher you around different agencies, some of which they can't help you and some can. There was one point they would check us off the missing list, just to make sure we weren't dead. And I think that with this like -- I think there are better ways to manage this, but I really think we need to do better -- like there needs to be better policy work. So like I understand we need immediate assistance, and people to come in 00:50:00to get immediate assistance, but I feel like there is too much left up to certain survivors to navigate that and they navigate it the wrong way. Think one wrong step, and you don't get the services you need and you need as much money as you need because you didn't say this properly or you didn't fill out this paperwork properly. And when you are already in a position -- Paradise was largely low-income, largely low-education -- when you're dealing with populations like that -- you know -- when Dan and I would come in to look at our insurance paperwork and negotiate these things. We went through like trainings on it, but that's not the demographics of Paradise. That's not the demographic of a lot of low-income places, that's not the way they behave. And so, I think a lot of that system is setting up a lot of those people for further failure. And this is going to perpetuate and make sure that they stay poor. If there was any kind of upward mobility for people in Paradise that were renting, or didn't own, 00:51:00or didn't have insurance, that upward mobility is pretty much scoffed right now. And I think that -- um -- lack of oversight from government agencies is just as much at fault for that.

S.B.: Okay. Um -- what brings you hope now that we're in March, and we're beyond -- the fire has stopped, and you have a semi-permanent place that you are being sheltered, and it's yours?

A.B.: I think the incredible kindness of people, just incredible kindness. Mostly people are good, I know I was talking about FEMA and stuff like that but on a people level, are inherently good. They are. We got -- I mean -- I've had strangers, like church organizations, because I had like a mass collection of textbooks I've already had people send me some. I've had like strangers come and drop off books for me.

S.B.: Wow.

A.B.: At Christmas time, they had a Christmas tree and all the decorations 00:52:00donated to us so we could have a tree.

S.B.: Wow.

A.B.: So -- um -- and I know other people have had their entire homes furnished. We actually didn't pay for hardly anything in our house.

S.B.: Wow.

A.B.: It was all donated. Um -- and it's unfortunate that it takes something like this to people to realize -- I really think that people are good despite this traumatic event.

S.B.: Well thank you.

A.B.: And thank you!

S.B.: Is there anything you wanna add?

A.B.: No, actually I really have to pee.

S.B.: Well I will let you go do that.

A.B.: You can keep that in too, it's fine.

S.B.: Okay.

A.B.: [laughs]

S.B.: I will! I'm gonna hit stop here.