ar >> nrator: tonight- >> by noon we had conceded that the towhad basically burned down. >> narrator:tone year since california's deadest fire... >> the plan s coletely overwhelmed by circumstances. but i think those circumstances re not unprecedented. >> narraarr: frontline tak you inside that day. >> the road's completely engulfed in flames. and i told my husband, i'm like, "i can't run through fire." and he said, "you're greng os have to." >> narrator: expg the new dangers of a changing climate. >> we just did not anticipate a fire that went seven and a half les in an hon and a hal i don't think anybody envisioned that happening. >> do you think you should have envisioned tppening? >> i'm not going to answer that queson. >> narrator: and a giant power company under scrutiny.

>> is what pg&e did orid not do, grossly negligent?he >'ve been on probation, they've violated the probation. if pg&e was an individual and not a corporation, i think by now th would be in prison.ra >> nr: tonight on frontline- "fire in paradise". >> frontline is made possible bi cotions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. and by the corporation for public broadcastadg. majosupport is pisvided by t john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation, committedo uilding a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org. the ford foundation: working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. at fordfoudfation.org.or additional support iprovidedpo by the abrams foundation, committed to excellence in journalism. the park foundation, dedicated to heightening public awareness of critical issues. the john and helen glessner family trust.

suortipp trustworthy journalism that informs and inspires. and by the frontline journalism fund,aj with support from jon and jo ann hagler. and additional support from la.a debos and scott nath ♪ >> paradise is... there's something about it, hethere's something with t country that's... the trees are beautiful. just living in the mountains, and... it's healing to be here. >> you saw hummingbirds and butterflies. we'dweleep outside under the stars. it's a tight-knit commity.

e.eryone is super-strong and resilienliup herfe you neve more safe than out there in the mountains. ♪ >> good morning and it's... a red-flag fire danger wning in effect. up to 45-mile-per-hour gusts out of the north today. right now, it's 57 degrees. humidity down to 19% already... ♪ >> i woke up early the morning of the eighth. the wind was very strong. pine needles were hitting the roof. it's a metal roof, and inf- my hleep state, i thought, "is it raining?" any me you have the winds coming with no rain, it's very nerve-wracking. and we were getting so late in the season, we were just itically dry.us it waslike, please, blow in a storm.

you know, every now and then, i like to wake up early and make the guys bakfast. so when the wind woke me up, i said, "well, this is a perfect timeo get a jump on itn my phone was laying on the countertop next to where i wasat cutting up ps, and it illuminated. said there was a vegetation fire in the canyon. >> narrator: seven-and-a-half miles from the town of parade, a fire had staaded beneath high-voltage electricity tower. the line was almost 100 years old and was owned byg&e, america's largest electricity company. >> the fire started, as pg&e has admitted, from a piece of equipment that failed, bringing a power line in contact with the steel tower, so you had shards of molten metal that got thrown down into the brush. >> narrator: in high winds, companies like pg&e can turn ofr the elity in power lines

to reduce wildfire risk. >> we had heard that pg&e was thinking about turning off power in, in several dferent areas that were in danger of high winds and possibly something >> narrator: but that morning, pg&e had decided not to turn off the power. it would later say this wasbe use the winds were decreasing. >> i made one coer arod highway 70 to where you can t actually s pulga bridge. and so i took my eyes off s e road for two seconds, looked upo saw it and made my report. (rad static hissing) (people talking on radio) >>arrator: the fire was by narrow dirt track called camp creek roadroca ain mckenzie decided it was too dangerous to drive a fire

truck down it. >> narrato he requested air support to put out the fire, but it w windy to fly. ♪ it was a very sinking, very uncomfortable feeling seeing where it was at, um, and seeing how small it actually was relative to where it was at. it was a manageable-looking fire, if i could get to it. so... >> couldn't get to it.t it. (radio static hissing) (woman talking on radio)

>> narrator: the fire was reing towards concow, remote settlement of around 700 people, about halfway between where the fire ignited and paradise. >> i got g couplof phone calls fr other chief officers asking if i wasaying attention to the radio. you know, i think like a lot of people, didn't really take it too serious-- we get a lot of fires up there. you know, i told them, you know, it's cold, you know, it's in the 40s, it's november, it's a nuisance fire. the incidentommat was set up at the hardware store at yankee hill. anso we re preparing to defend concow and contain that fire. n (woman talkingdio) >> go ahead. >> ...21-07...

narrator: cal fire-- th state fire service-- began sending firefighters to tackle the blaze in concow. >> i drove up highway 70 and ahe wind was basical blowing all the smoke right over the top of us. b >> narrator: tze was soon dubbed "the camp fire," after the road where it started.re >> we topping down concow, helped out a few residents,ried to put some of the spot fires out around their house. they were relatively small, the5 were ten to maybe 20 feet. and then there was a point in there where the wind just kind of started picking up, and theha spot firest were not a big deal at the time started engulfinguboth sides of the road. ♪

>> my pops had been in concow ever since i can remember, before i was born. it's always felt so special. it's at the end of concow road. and, like, at the top, we always felt like nothing could hurt us there. and it was home sweet home. >> narrator: 21-year-old jordan who lived on his own on a small, farm. >> he'd grow pumpkins for the grandkids. so in october, when they were ready to harvest, we'd have jack-o'-lanterns to carve. and they were poppa's ns and they were bigger than anyone's you'd seen.my ops lost his leg in a farming incident, but they're the stubborn mountain he was always outside rking when we showed up, out in hislc whir working awa a ♪ >> narrator: by 7:30, the fire had picked up.p. the wind was spraying burning

embers in every direction. a column of smoke was now visible for miles. >> my dad had called my pops.ut he washere in hisn wheelchair, um, with a hose, um, putting out the fires that were breakg out into his yard, and my dad was, like, you wow, "don't worry about it, you need to go. you need to get out of here and leave. and he said, "okay, i will. i'll grab the dogs and i'll go." ♪ >> narrator: firefighter jeffgu edson and a collwere now trapped down by concow lake. we came across four individuals that were running, and they were waving their they had ember burns and stuffl on their skin and their hair. three of them ran and justju jumped straight in the water, 'cause they were taking so much heat. ♪

>> narrator: at the incident command post, chief messina was fire. this was becoming a major >> just be ready to call in personnel that are off-dutyri t now. >> narrator: but with firefighters in coow trapped, and aircraft unable to fly beuse of the wind, he didn't know how fast it was moving. >> we typically get our fire intelligence, what the fire's doin how fast it's spreading from our own line personnel. um... firefighte. what was different about this day was the fact that as soon as our firefighters engaged, they went right into rescue mode. and they, they were no longer ablenor did they really care, where the fire was spreading.er theytoo busy on rescuing civilians, and, you know, ensuring that... of their own safety. so we didn't get g lot of intelligence on how he spreading. ♪ >> narrator: the fire was moving towards the town of paradise, four miles away on the side of a steep canyon p

in thet, fires have rarely crossed the canyon, but the camp fire was now spreading at a rate of 80 football fields a minute. (telephone ringing) >> the calls staaled coming in slowly as people were waking up in the morning, havi their coee, looking out the ndow, and seeing what i couldn't see. (telephone ringing) >> narrator: dispatcher caroca ladrini had been traed to handle calls reporting fires. >> do you see ashes?la do you sees? how close is it? i f becae kind of far off be across the street or two canyons away. >> narrator: cal fe normallyti es paradise police if a fire is threatening the town, but they hadn't done so.

>> narrator: as more calls came in, ladrini says she contacted cal fire, and they told her the as north of concow-- miles from paradise.ar >> did they say anything about the size or the inteity of the fire? >> no. n at that point, they didn't, and, and i didn't ask. generally, a fire that far away would never even get close to paradise. >> paradare police. re >> whyo many people calling about this smoke? ntat... what's going on? still, at that pi didn't know what they were seeing. (telephone ringing) so all i could do was call cal fire back. what i said was, "can youth confirm e that this is north of concow, that this is not in paradise? people say there's ashes falling." "yes, it's north of cof ow."

that's ohe words that i got. "okay."so continued to tell the peoplehat were calling that we were not under threat. (telephone ringing) >> narrator: by 7:45, the fire ndhad crossed the canyon a wase threatening paradise and the surrounding area, home to 40,000 people. cal fire issued an evacuation order for residents on the east de of paradise, but not for thosfrom other parts of town

>> narrator: 18 minutes after fire entered the town, carolin lareceived a call from cal fire. >> when i started as a firefighter in the m0s, we had large fires. you know, it wasn't uncommon. and we may be at a large fire for a week or two, maybe even a little bit longer. but then the periods would go back, we'd regrnd we'dd get ready for the next round. now, in thcurrent fire environment, the season is much longer. the summer is much hot hr, drier, less humidity, and typically, our winters have been on theower end of average. >> we measure climateather stations, and whenires burn, we trace their footprint.

those types of analyses have shown that human-caused climate change has doubled wildfire since 1984 across the western united states above what would have burned thout climate change.ge >> narrator: researchers say thatn northern california, summers have warmed by an average of 2.5 degrees in the last 50 years. at the same time, climate change has made prolonged drought more common in the area. >> what we've observed over the last several fire seass is that it doesn't rain until late in december or even early nuary, and that meanthat the landscape hasn't seen a drop of precipitation in perhaer eight months. it's that combination ofor fact where you get the high winds, you get the tigh temperatures, you have fuels that are bondry, and you combine all of those factors into a pkage that is really

explosive from a wildland perspective, where then, if u throw a match into that package, you're going to generate a catastrophe. (radio static hissing)ad >> all units bsed, the town of paradise is under a mandatory evaction. the town of paradise is undery a mandatacuation. (man bathing heavily) >> i was dispatched to the fire down on the east canyoe edge. so i sli smy bodcamera on and went behind the house. i can caar a roaring, and i could see flames coming up from, from the canyon that wereob ly 30, 40 feet in height. (pickering speaking on radio) >> narrator: fire was now established on the east sira of dise. police wendoor-to-door to make sure people had left.

>> the fire was swirling around the houses. a it was coming t all angles. defying any sense ofty or any sense of, in my mind, what would be normal for a fire. too much was happening, too much was going on, and we were not able to do more than just a couple olehandful of streets. >> narrator: sergeant pickering made his way to paradise's largest building, feather river hospital. >> my husbd texts me, and he says, "hey, there's a big fire." and i said"huh." i said, "i didn't see anything. where's it comg from?" goes, "out of concow." and i said, "okay, well, hopefully it doesn't cross the canyon, 'cause then i'm gonna have to evacuate the hospital." um... and then wsaw the orange glow through the patients' rooms. ♪ >> for the moment, yes.

er>> there was people that w having to carry an i.v. bag with them, they were holdeir own i.v. bag. and then we had people that wer just coming out of surgery that had to be loaded up. >> doctors pulled up with their s.u.vs. and were putting patients in with doctors. >> okay, hang a hard right... >> and nurses are driving theire own privathicles and taking out their car seats and leaving them on the side of the hospital ground. it wasn't a normal evacuatn th we've been planningnd, d rehearsing, it was so fast. s >> what wathat? ny >>where from a few minutes to 15, 20 minutes, everything around the hospital was burning it went black realck it felt like, it felt li working a night shift.

(radio squawking) (pkering sighs) ♪ >> we were stuck in traffic for quite a while in the hospital as everything around us is on fire. >> well, where's the fire department, where's the hoses?se why isn't anybany putting thesee out? you know, it was so confusing.

>> i assum that the fire was right there, next to me.w, i didn't kt the time, that the fire had jumped all the way into paradise. nobody said anything to us. body sd, "hey, all of paradise is on fire." >> copy, 0922.ng on radi >>ultiple structures on fire here... stt towards paradise. >> see the fire's about to jump the road. (people talking on radio) >> picture it like a snoww blizzard. there was just thousands upon thousands of embers blowing through the air. yoit was really hard to ge mind around how rapidly it was

developing. >> narrator: in less than an hour, the fire swept across the to of paradise, overwhelmi the firefighters' efforts to st it. >> t homes, the hoe s are (people talking onio) n >>rator: the smoke, swirling with burning pine needles and pieces of houses, turned day t night. a area would catch on fire, homes would catch on fire generating heat, which would throw more embers, thad start another fire. and those winds can push thosewa embers a lon. and it just kind of perpetuates into one big fire at once. there was no, there was no flaming front. >> narrator: in a typical fire, the smoke travels straight up, where cooler air puts out most ofhe embers. but in this fire, winds high up wof up to 100 miles an hoe blowing the embers sideways. >> the wind aloft that lofd the embers was a lot stronger wind than the wind at the surface. and that's what allowed it to...

(imitates plosion) ...throw fireballs all over our town. i think thin's what differentiates thifire from the other fires. that they all had a path, and this one didn't. it really didn't.'t it had paths. it had a lot of paths, um, and they were all happening at the same time. >> oh, my god! ♪ >> there was, like, no sirres as warnings or anything. no o telling anyone for sure what was happeni. so we're, like, "oh, let's go check it out." (horn honking) we just get in the car and we can't even pull out, 'causeca there wa all the way down. you couldn't even get on the road. j >> narratodan huff was trying to leave with her boyfriend along paradise's main road, skyway. >> everything was red,hi ever jt seemed like panic.

>> i started freaking out, because thfire's coming at us and i didn't wanna see it, i't dianna feel ee. like, i didn't wanna be there. i just kinda wanted toea sa because i couldn't believe this was happening. ♪ >> holy (bleep)! >> it wasuffering, moving that slow. i didn't understand whd not everyone was flooring it. like, we we all about to burn alive.iv like, why isn't n'eryone, like, full speed ahead? like, why are we stuck? like, why? how? ad >> the town of pe and the upper ridge has had a community evacuation plan since the late '90s. in the early 2000s, that plan was updated and included maps withones in them. paradise is limited by the number of routes out of town. each fire is different, you know. fires comecorom differentct direions.

so we had to look at varying scenarios and determine what intersections would needul controlling undeina noally loping fire. >>arrator: the emergency planners had divided the town into 14 zones. they would be evacuated in turn depending on where the fire came from. >> we actually had a trial run in 2008.ed we evacuhe zones on the east side of town for a fire coming from concow.wh the lesson learned from 2008 was, the more you evacuatec the mos on the road, the more difficult it is to evacuate the town. so we didn't have a plan to evacuate the entire town at once mostly because it wouldn't work. our plan became, i think, probab one of the most elaborate plans in the state. >> narrator: in a review aft the 2008 fire, a butte county grand jury warned that the town's roads had "serious capacity limitations" and made a number of recommendations, including widening the evacuation routes.

thcounty's governing boa imemented some of the recommendation butreas no funding to widen all of the roads. ♪ >> one of my personal responses to the grand jury was, if you gave us $10 or $15 million, maybe $20 million, to build new roads off the ridge, um, maybe we could develop a plan that would t people off the ridge, you know, everyone off the ridge at one time.co roads a lot of money. these roads would be roads that, on a average day, they're built for traffic that doesn't exist.n d then you say we're going to build four lanes that aren't gonna be used except once in a, in a half-century? yeah, that, that's gonna be a pretty hard ask to make. (peopleotalking on radio) >> ...gonna op up both lanes d get everybody out. (people talking on radio) l >> flames, get people moving, now! >> narrator: there were now over 350 fireghters in paradise.

int with burning embers ca new fires all across the town, there was no clear front line for them to fight. (people talking on radio) >> we conceded... i can tell you, it was 9:23 inin the morning, we conceded that intaining the evacuation routes and civilian rescue was our only objective that day, a there was no orders given that contradicted that. >> narrator: although the entire town was under an evacuation thousands of residents were still at home. (sirens blaring) >> my mom had me at 41. fomany years, we were like best friends. ent out redbox movies fm safeway, which was right next door, and hang out. >> narrator: 25-year-oldthing. christina taft and her mother, victoria, lived in central paradise. >> i wasn't thinking it was thar rious at, and then in

the shower, i started to smell oke. i was definitely panicked. i thought itouldll, like, burn.an i told that to my mom, and she just... she didn't want to listen to that negativity. we weren't really, ly,e, arguing, it was just kind of like i was saying stuff andng then pacp everything i could into the car.ar like, it was completely filled in the trunk and the tack seat, and just with the fron, you know, for my mom.en iton for a hour, kind k. she was just not really packingt she didn'tut of her pajamas, and then she started calling other people to find out what wasappening. looking outside, it started getting, you know, traffic and darker. i, you know, i just didn't know what. like, it was either i leave or stay and risk my ost life, and i had a life to live. like, told her that, like, "i have a life to live." and she was just kind of, like, lking to people on the phone, and they weren't telling her, "leave." >> narrato christina joined the thousands of othersev

uating the town. her mom refused to come with her. >> it was very slow leaving, but it was all burnt, ke, all the way down. people were stopping, getting people in their cars, and i was stuck, so i couldn't go k,ck, even though it wasn't very fug away. it just was horrible, because i keptkealling my mom, and it just didn't work. >> narrator: christina and her mother had n h received official evacuation order. the county sheriff's office was code red.ew alert system called it had an option to send outit a mass alert to every paradise resident, but that morning theyidn't use it. >> this was an extraordinarily chaotic situation.ul there was diff in terms of structurctg the, um, the area that we wanted to target. we had one person who was working to try to get thatt. message

i can assure you from the standpoint of the sheriff's office, nobody was waiting around, uh, uh... to notify people. it was wt as though this, hoyy des calculated or intentional. >> narrator: they did send out alerts using another feature that informed residents zoney zone, but only those who had signed . >> we knew that sign-ups were not where they needed to be.e. but we believed that tt was the future, and our big campgn for 201920as to really increase the number of people signed up for code red. >> narrator: more than half ofno residents hasigned up, including christina and her mother. and many of those who had still didn't get a notification. >> cell phone towers went down-- the networks were so clogged thate couldn get through it. it was an event that literally outpaced all of our resources almost immediately, literally outpaced all of the planning

had been done prior to this.te and ultima, people have to be resnsible for their own fety. the best person to craft an evacuation plan for you is you. ♪ >> this is me trying to evacuate. pentz road is on fire, everything is burnt. >> narrator: after evacuating the hospital, nurse nichole lly was driving south. she turned off pentz road onto a side street, pears road. ahead of her, cars were already on fire and had been abandoned. >>'m getting down intoinhi ravine, and i kind of look, going, "oh, this, this isn't good," because,"his fire is blowblg so fast. >> the road's completely engulfed, n flames, and we're

stuck in the middle of it. that tree could come on me atan moment. this is ridiculous, and i'm (bleep).hind these stupid i and i'm on my, on the phone to my husband, a screaminamfoamhim. i'm, like, "nick, you got to get to me, you have to hurry, because i'm not going to make it." and he said, "i'm tryi, i'm going to get to you." and i'm, like, "i'm going to die, and i'm, i'm so sorry." and... and my car is starting to fill up with smoket that point. and i told my husband, i'm, like, he car's filling up with smoke, i have to get out of the car." and he's, like, "get out and and i'm, like, "i can't get out and run, you don't understand,fi there' everywhere, and i can't run through fire." and he said, "you're going to have to." ♪

>> t>> town of paradise, almoste han any other town that i've heard of, had really thought about the issue fire and evacuation, and they had a plan. and the plan was completely umerwhelmed by circumstances. i think the ciances were not unp ucedented. we have had a numberf fires over the last several years prior to the camp fip that hado of the characteristics, in, particulare rate of spread and the total ineffectiveness of any kind of suppressionef rts. >> narrator: climate cmae has contributed to making fires bigger and more frequent. ten of the 20 most destructrve res in california have happened in the last four years. >> fires are differe today. you need to plan differently. you have communities that are saying, "we have our evacuationl ." but if the pn involves driving down a road like the one in paradise, that was essentially

s blocked by the fire, that a very good plan. theoad is narrow and will become gridlocked, not a nerygo plan. >> so, in about 2015, we developed this binder. and we carry this binder in our vehicles and this binder includes evacuation plans and traffic plans, um... evacuation plans r every community, foothill community in butte county. >> why, given that there have been very fast-moving fireg igfore, was it not part p the plning that it ba possibility to have a fire of this speed and intensity? >> ion't think we've ever seen that before. so i don't think that it wasas something thatthat was ever envisioned. as far as modeling, we did plan for a rapiy developing fire. we just dit not plan for, we just did not anticipate a fire that went seven-and-anhalf miles in an hour and a half. i don't think anybody envisioneh happening. >> do you think you should have envisioned that happening? >> i, i'm not going to answer

that question. ♪ >> we've got four trapped in the basement. four people trped in the basement. >> narrator: an hour and a half after fire hit paradise, thousands were trying to leave but many oths were trapped in their homes. 18 miles from the fire, cal fire emergency center was receiving 911 calls. >> the phones rang and rang and rang, and they didn't stop. >> it was loud, it was, it was noisy, it was constant. >> i answered the phone, and i eaard a lady-- actually, i three ladies.

she had a hard time evenhoking.. telling me exactly where they were. ro >> they were in with, she told me, "no windows, i, i can't get out." and i couldn't... i couldn't leave her. >> it started getting real staticky. and i had no response. i was talking to myself. and after nine minutes and, ndd something, the phone went dead. i just couldn't help her. and i just had t hhit the next, answer the 911, and start allal over.

(people talking in background) ♪ >> here? >> i gotta go. >> narrator: by midmorning, refiters were trying to make it down the road where nichole jolly was stranded. the temperature at the center of the fire was now around 1,800 grees. >> i'm running up this hill, a it's a pretty steep hill, and i couldn't see anything. and i'm putting my hand over my eyes, and the flames are just

hitting the side of me. i just was thinking, "please let there be a vehicle or something that i can jump into,"e cause ia was so hthat point. and i ended up touching the back of a fire eine, and i'm, like, "oh, yay, a , re engine." i sat in the center, and we were stuck, we were stopped. wand i'm, like, "why aren moving?" and he's, like, "well, there's cars on fire all around us." this is wh i this thing is built for, you know. throthh fire.ing's meant to go no, those things are not meant to go through fire. >> i could start hearing a distress call for air support. and you could hear the urgency in their voices on the radio. i remember it being pitch-blackd ouand zero visibility and knowing that that was impossible.im i answeredack, inappropriately, uh, using his first name. i said, "john, where a?"

>> nartor: determined to get drove a bulldozer through they flam. >> we're hearing this noise coming up behind us. it was really loud. it was this clasking chains. you could hear, it was, like, thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk-unk.un >> i started taking fully them away the best i could.g >> and he's flipping them over, and it's just a miracle. and he cleared this way for us. >> what happened on pearson road we don't train air. mthey don't teach us how e fully involved cars. they teach us how to aid that. there were several times where it crossed my mind that this was a verya ad idea. but if people were counting on me to keep going and, uh, not stop... >> narrator: joe kennedy managed to clear the road so nichole and the firefighters could get to fety. he continued working for another 24 hours.. >> he kept saving people on that roade no a/c, no fankets, just

glasndows in the middle of this inferno. ♪ >> narrator: the fire had now burned around 20,000 a and was visible from space. ♪ >> 21-54...lk (people taing on radio) >> our air-tac officer gave a how much was being impacted.nd and he basically said, "the's firogressed all the way through town." and anesreports of civilians trapyod and rescues,uend, you know, we'd already had reports of a lot of fatalities >> 70 charlie... >> and by noon, we had concededt th town had basically burned down. (people talking on radio)

>> nartor: it took only four hours for paradise to be destroyed. by the endf the day, 50,000 5 people had managed tescape, scattering to neighboring wns. >> there was literally a point on the toad where it went fromll o, there was a sky again ped there was air to breathe. d it wit this f feeling that changes your whole tire life. "i just got th chance to be able to live again." >> mmom took us back to the house that my kids were staying at. and i see my husband just pacing in the driveway, ayd he's just pacing and pacing and pacing. and i'm, like, "mom, you need t u need to get wn there, i see nick." and she's, like, "nichole, we'r' in a residential aa-- i can't, i can't drive fast." and i'm, like, "then you need to let me out."t and i got the car, and i ran fan er than she was driving, and i just grabbed ont husband. and i'll never forget what he said. he said, "i thought st lost you." and i'm, like, "i know."

♪ " " >> arrator: a week after theta fireed, more than 5,000 firefighters were tackling the ndblaze, from thground a thesk ♪ >> there was nothing standing, and there wee still homes burning. you know, power lines were down, cars were burned, they were still burning. it looked like a war zone, it looked like bombs had been dropped on the town. >> it was heartbreaking to me. i grew up in that town, um, i graduated from high school in that town. i was the fire chief in that town and honored to be t fire chief in that town, and it was heabreaking to see. ♪

>> narrator: paradise burned for over two weeks finally, the first winter rainss came and put the fe out. it had burned 153,000 acres, an area the size of chicago. ♪ it was the most destructive fire california had eadr seen. around 30,000 peopleost their homes. it took many weeks to identifyti those who died. >> it was actually thanksgiving day when they confirme >> narrator: christina taft had not heard t om her mother since the morning ofinhe fire. >> she was found on the property in the living ro. she was still inside, she wasn't able to get out. and prably, like, it was

right by the window, so thatth s really horrible imagining that she didn't probably know what to do or something. i don't thk e reallyly i realizedwas as bad as it was. i blamed myself, ilamed authority, i blamed the other people, i blamed a lot ofan really angry at heot people, i think they expect there's anmergency, they get notified. i think if we did have a order, it would have made a difference to my mom. ♪ >> narrator:5 people perished the camp fire. the marity were over 65 years some were trapped ir cars, others were still in their homes. >> it breaks my heart that they got a false sense of surity.my anybany else that swering

the phone that day was not able to give them more information, better information, faster information. it kind of snowballs on you. ♪ >> could you have got evacuation orders o to communities that were likely to be hit before th were hit?hi >> i mean, we can always monday, you know, monday quarterback it. i know what you're sayin, but, mean, maybe, maybe five minutes earlier.ie but the issuwasn't how fast we notified ife public, it was how fast wd get them off the hill. the transportation system would only hold so many vehies, and we were trying to put more vehicles on the road than it could hold.

♪ >> i have no doubt in my mind that if we, as public safety agencies, had not done what we did, the conditions would have beenuch worse and there woul have been more loss of life. it was bad. but this fire affect tens of thousands of people in a matter of a few hours. the plan was implemented. i, i'm very confident in saying it was, it was successful. was it flawless? absoluly not. ♪ >> we never gave up hope. you know, we kept looking, and he can't read or write, so we thought maybe hee ouldn't get in contact with us. >> narrator: jordan huff was waiting for news about her grandfather tk, who had been up in concow. i was two weeks later, my mom called me, and she was all like, "jordan..." i knew what the phon was, because, like,y mom doesn'tn' call to talk.

she told me they found pop's body, and i was like, "yeah?"an then like, "yeah, they found thd bodyd n the home." and i was like, "oh," d, you know, i just cried. i didn't know what to say, and she asked me if i'm okay, and i just hung up the phone, because you're not okay. we went out there on december 4, me and my dan only. literally, everying is gone except, you know, you go out to the back fence, and you see wheelchair. you see his watering hose burnt to a crisp all the way, dragged all the way right next to the wheelchair and a bucket of water. a image.d, like, we,ts to make but you don't really want to make an image, but iutdoes i anyways. and... and man, is it crazy to have a image like that in your head. smart, and he was a gentle giant.

♪ >> just gog around the community, and you see someone that you haven't seen for a while. "where were you? what hapned to you what happened to your family?" it's our local 9/11. this is a day that we willem alwaysr. date thall just.red in be a the collective consciousness of our community. >> narrator: six months after the fire, the buttcounty district attorney launched an investigation into whether to t bring criminal chaes agast pg&e, the company whose power line had started the fire. >> is wh pg&e did-- or did not do-- grossly negligent? something that is beyond, ll beyond ordinary negligence?on of the charges that we're looking at under california

penacode section 452 is reckless arson. "to prove the defendt is f this crime, the people must prove beyond a reasonableth doub, one, the defendant rned or ca to ed burned property, uh, or forest land"-- pretty simple. we've got that. at the fired burned an inhabited structure or the firee caused g bodily injury to another person. ay, we've got structures--00 nearly 1 85 people. got that element. the element that is the-the lasa elemen i, "and the defendant did so recklessly." >> narrator:g&e has a long history of safety violatns and a criminal conviction for a gas explosion in 2010. its equipment has been linked to california in recent years. >> this is a company that, itfi wad nendreds of times and faced more than two, almost

$3 billion worth of fine you know, if pg&e was an individual and not a corporation, i think by now they woulbe in prison. there's just been repeat offenders, they've been on probation, they'veiolated the probation. the problem is you can't take a corporation and put it into prison. to >> narra in the months after the fire, reporters at "the wall street journal" discovered that pg&e had been warned itssi ntansmis towers re aging and that com cnes might fail. >> in 2010, they had a outside contractor come in and "thed verage age o towers id, is 68 years old, but the mean life exptancy is only 65." so, you know, in a sse pg&e was sort of playing with fire over the years. they were basically saying, "look, we will let these transmission lin l age in placee and if t a problem with one of them, we'll go out and fix it."it >>ut climate change, the consequences of failure of a relatively modest.t's re falls down, perhaps, or... and it causea and the

fire department comes and puts it out. so, the system has been maintained, you know, with somet preventive maienance but also with a philosophy th it can run until it breaks. the thing is that the costs have changed. the ris have chaed. >> narrator: pg&e decled to be inteiniewed by "teontline," but said in a statement that the company "disagrees with y suggestion that it knew of any specific maintenance conditions that caused the campand nonetheless deferred work that would have addressed those conditions." it aed, "since 2010 pg&e has spent hundreds of millions on line preventative work". >> pg&e is taking this exaordinary step of sayingyi "look, we can't handle this liability anymore. so that during the days, red flag days, when there's low humidity and high windwe're just going to shut off the power." and it's sort of a stunning t thing nk about, but there

increasingly, um, are days, and-and multiple days in rthern california, where communities suddenly don't have power anymore. >> narrator: pg&e has now filed for bankruptcy protection because liabilitiesrising from wildfires. it estimates that it could face at least $10.5 billion in damages from the camp fire alone. >> i think this is one of the fit real climate adaptatio problemslehat at least america sts confronted.ed and this is not atic problem. we have a problem that's going to grow wo ge inevitably over the next seval decades. >> narrator: some scientists believe that fires in californin coulease in size dramatically by the middle of the century if temperatures continue to rise. >> everything was perfect that dafor a massive, destructive incident to do what it did. fod it's in place everywhere. everywhere in caia, arizona, nevada, washington,

and it's like whe you don't even want to think can it be worse tht?"'s next? and the answer is yes. ♪ >> the more data, the better the ai works. inhe age of ai where data the new oil, china ithe new saudi arabia. there will be a chinese tech sector and therll be an american tech sector. >> machines are automating some of our skills. >> when i increase productivity through automation, jobs go away. >> it has pervaded so ma elements of everyday life. how do we make it transparent and accountable? >> go to pbs.org/front ne for o mopg&e. >> is what pg&e did or did not do, grossly negligent? >> and more about the emergency alert system in paradise. >> people i think they expect if there's an emergency

th'll get notified.e i think ifd have an order it would have made a difference to my mom. e>> connect to the frontl community on facebook and twitter, and watch anytime on the pbvideo app or pbs.org/frontlintl >> frontline is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. and by the corporaon for public broadcasting. major support is provided by the john d. and catherin macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org. the ford foundation: working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. at fordfoundatioor additional support is iovided by t abrams foundation, committed to excellence in journalism. the parkoundation, decated to heightening public awareness of critical sues.hn the nd helen glessner family trust. supporting trustworthy journali that informs and inspires. and by the

frontline journasm fund, with major support from jon and jo ann hagler. and additional support from laura debonis and scott nathan. captioned byro media access at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> for more on this and othernt "fne" programs, visit our website at pbs.org/frontline. ♪ f to ordntline's, "fire in paradise" on dvd, visit shoppbs or call 1-800-play-pbs. this program is also available on amazon prime video. ♪

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