>> narrator: tonight— >> by noon we had conceded that the towhad basically burned down. >> narrator:tone year since california's deadliest fire... >> the plan s completely 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 to have to.” >> narrator: exposing the new dangers of a changing climate. >> we just did not anticipate a fire that went seven and a half miles in an hon and a half. i don't think anybody envisioned that happening. >> do you think you should have envisioned that happening?

>> i'm not going to answer that queson. >> narrator: and a giant power company under scrutiny. >> is what pg&e did or did not do, grossly negligent? >> they'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. >> narrator: tonight on frontline- “fire in paradise”. >> frontline is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. and by the corporation for public broadcastadg. major support is pisvided by the john d. and catherine t. 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 fordfoudfation.org.or additional support is providedpo 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. supportipp trustworthy journalism that informs and inspires. and by the frontline jonalism fund, with maj support from jon and jo ann hagler. and additional support from laura debos and scott nathan. ♪ ♪ >> paradise is... there's something about it, there's something with the 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 community. everyone is super-strong and resilienliup here. you never felt more safe than out there in the mountains. ♪ ♪ >> good morning and it's... a red-flag fire danger wning is in effect. up to 45-mile-per-hour gusts out of the north today. right now, it'57 degrees. humidity down to 19% already... ♪ ♪ >> i woke up early theorning of the eighth. the wind was very strong. pine needles were hitting the roof. it's a mal roof, and in my half-asleep state, i thought, "is it raining?" any time 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. it was just like, please, blow

in a storm. you know, every now and then, i like to wake up early and make the guys breakfast. so when the wind woke me up, i said, "well, this is a perfect time to get a jump on itn my phone was laying on the countertop next to where i was cutting up potatoes, and it illuminated. said there was a vegetation fire in the canyon. >> narrator: seven-and-a-half miles from the town of paradise, a fire had staaded beneath high-voltage electricity tower. the line was almost 100 years old and was owned by pg&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 off the ele tricity in power lines to reduce wildfire risk. >> we had heard that pg&e was thinking about turning off power in, in several different areas that were in danger of high winds and possibly something happening with power lines. >> narrator: but that morning, pg&e had decided not to turn off the power. it would later say this was because the winds were decreasing. >> i made one coer around highway 70 to where you can actually see the 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) >> narrator: the fire was by a narrow dirt track called camp

creek roadro captain mckenzie decided it was too dangerous to drive a fire truck down it. >> narrato he requested air support tout out the fire, but it was too 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... >> but you couldn't get to it. >> couldn't get to it. (radio static hissing) (woman talking on radio)

>> narrator: the fire was ing towards concow, a remote settlement of around 700 people, about halfway between where the fire ignited and paradise. >> i got g couple of phone calls 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 incidentommand post was set up at the hardware store at yankee hill. anso we were preparing to defend concow and contain that fire. (woman talking on radio)

>> go ahead. >> ...21-07... narrator: cal fire-- the state fire service-- began sending firefighters to tackle the blaze in concow. >> i drove up highway 70 and ahe wind was basically blowing all the smoke right over the top of us. >> narrator: the blaze was soon dubbed "the camp fire," after the road where it started. >> we were stopping down concow, helped out a few residents,ried to put some of the spot fires out around their house. they were relatively small, they were ten to 15, maybe 20 feet. and then there was a point in there where the wind just kind of started picking up, and the spot fires that 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 huff often visited her granddad, 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 pumpkins and they were bigger than anyone's you'd seen. my pops lost his leg in a farming incident, but they're the stubborn mountain folk. he was always outside rking when we showed up, out in his wheelchair 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. he was out there in hisn wheelchair, um, with a hose, um, putting out the fires that were breaking 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 jeff edson and a colleague were now trapped down by concow lake. >> we came across four individuals that were running, and they were waving their hands at me, and you could tell they had ember burns and stuff 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 aware this was becoming a major fire. >> just be ready to call in personnel that are off-duty right now. >> narrator: but with firefighters in coow trapped, and aircraft unable to fly use of the wind, he didn't know how fast it was moving. >> we typically get our fire intelligence, what the fire's doing, how fast it's spreading, from our own line personnel. um... firefighters. what was difrent 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. they were too busy on rescuing civilians, and, you know, ensuring that... of their own safety. so we didn't get g lot of intelligence on how host the fire w spreading. ♪ ♪ >> narrator: the fire was moving towards the town of paradise,

four miles away on the other side of a steep canyon in the past, 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, having their ee, looking out the ndow, and seeing what i couldn't see. (telephone ringing) >> narrator: dispatcher caroca ladrini had been trained to handle calls reporting fires. >> do you see ashes? do you see flames? how close is it? i becae kind of far off cof d be across the street or two canyons away. >> narrator: cal fe normally notifies paradise police if a fire is threatening the town, but they hadn't done so.

>> narrator: as more cls came in, ladrini says she contacted cal fire, and they told her the was 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. >> why are so many people calling about this smoke? what... what's going on? still, at that point, i didn't know what they were seeing. (telephone ringing) so all i could do was call cal fire back. what i said was, "can you confirm with me 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 i continued to tell the peoplehat were calling that we were not under threat. (telephone ringing) >> narrator: by 7:45, the fire had crossed the canyon and 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 those from other parts of town.

>> narrator: 18 minutes after fire entered the town, carol ladrini received a call from cal fire. >> when i started as a firefighter in the mid-1980s, we had large fires. you know, it wasn't unmmon. and we may be at a large fire for a week or two, maybe even a little bit longer. but then the periods would subside and weould, weould go back, we'd regroup, and we'd get ready for the next round. now, in the current fire environment, the season is much longer. the summer is much hot hr, drier, less humidity, and typically, our winters have been on the lower end of average. >> we measure climate at weather 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 without climate change.ge >> narrator: researchers say that in 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 seasons is that it doesn't rain until late in december or even early january, and that meanthat the landscape hasn't seen a drop of precipitation in perhaer eight months. it's that combination of factors, where you get the high winds, you get the tigh temperatures, you have fuels that are bone-dry, and you combine all of those factors

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

>> the fire was swirng around the houses. it was coming in at all angles. defying any sense of gravity 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 husband 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?" he 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 we saw the orange glow through the patients' rooms. ♪ ♪

>> for the moment, yes. >> there was people that wer w having to carry an i.v. bag with them, they were holding their 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 their own private vehicles 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 planning and, d rehearsing, it was so fast. >> what was that? >> anywhere from a few minutes to 15, 20 minutes, everything around the hospital was burning and on fire.

it went black real quick it felt like, it felt like working a night shift. (radio squawking) (pickeng 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 these fires out? you know, it was so confusing. >> i assumed that the fire was right there, next to me. i didn't know, at the time, that the fire had jumped all the way into paradise. nobody said anything to us. nobody sd, "hey, all of paradise is on fire." (people speaking on radio) >> copy, 0922. 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 snow blizzard. there was just thousands upon thousands of embers blowing through the air.

it was really hard to get your mind around how rapidly it was developing. >> narrator: in less thaan hour, the fire swept across the town of paradise, overwhelming the firefighters' efforts to st it. >> t homes, the hoe s are becoming involved. (people talking on radio) >> narrator: the smoke, swirling with burning pe needles and pieces of houses, turned day t night. >> an area would catch on fire, homes would catch onire generating heat, which would throw more embers, that would start another fire. and those winds can push those embers a long ways. 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 of the embers. but in this fire, winds high up of up to 100 miles an hour were 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 whatt 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. telling anyone for sure what was happening. 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, 'cause there was cars all the way down. you couldn't even get on the road. >> narrator: jordan huff was trying to leave with her boyfriend along paradise's main road, skyway. >> everything was red,

everything jt seemed like panic. >> i started freaking out, because thfire's coming at us and i didn't wanna see it, i didn't wanna feel ee. like, i didn't wanna be there. i just kinda wanted to sappear, because i couldn't believe this was happening. ♪ ♪ >> holy (bleep)! >> it was suffering, 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? >> the town of paradise 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 different directions. so we had to look at varying scenarios and determine what intersections would needul controlling undeina noally veloping 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. we evacuated the zones on the east side of town for a fire coming from concow. the whole lesson learned from 2008 was, the more you evacuate, the more cars 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, probably one of the most elaborate plans in the state. >> narrator: in a review after 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. the county's governing boa emented some of the recommendation but thereas 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 get people off the ridge, you know, everyone off the ridge at one time. roads cost a lot of money. these roads would be roads that, on a average day, they're built for traffic that doesn't exist. and then you say we're going to build four lanes that aren't gonna be used except once in a, in a half-ntury? yeah, that, that's gonna be a pretty hard ask to make. (peopleotalking on radio) >> ...gonna open up both lanes and get everybody out. (people talking on radio) l >> flames, get people moving,

now! >> narrator: there were now over 350 fireghters in paradise. but with burning embers causing 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, and there was no orders given that contradicted that. >> narrator: although the entire town was under an evacuation orr, thousands of residents were still at home. (sirens blaring) >> my mom had me at 41. for many years, we were like best friends. we wouldent out redbox movies from safeway, which was right next door, and hang out. and i could tell her anything. >> narrator: 25-year-old christina taft and her mother, victoria, lived in central

paradise. >> i wasn't thinking it was that rious at first, and then in the shower, i started to smell oke. i was definitely panicked. i thought itouldll, like, burn. and 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 and then packing up everything i could into the car.ar like, it was completely filled in the trunk and the tack seat, and just with the front seat, you know, for my mom. it went on for a hour, kind k. she was just not really packing, she didn't get out of her pajamas, and then she started calling other people to find out what was happening. looking outside, it started getting, you know, traffic and darker. i, you know, i just didn't know what to do. like, it was either i leave or stay and risk my ost life, and i had a life to live. like, i told her that, like, "i have a life 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 others evacuating the town. her mom refused to come with her. >> it was very slow leaving, but was all burnt, like, all the way down. people were stopping, getting people in their cars, and i was stuck, so i codn't go back,k, 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 an official evacuation order. the county sheriff's office was using a new alert system called code red. it had an option to send outit a mass alert to every paradise resident, but that morning they didn't use it. >> this was an extraordinarily chaotic situation. there was difficulty in terms of structurctg the, um, the area that we wanted to target.

we had one person who was working to try to get that message out. 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, hoy delay was calculated or intentional. >> narrator: they did send out alerts using another feature that informed residents zone by zone, but only those who had signed . >> we knew that sign-ups were not where they needed to be.e. but we believed that that 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 of residents had not signed up, including christina and her mother. and many of those who had still didn't get a notification. >> cell phone towers wendown-- the networks were so clogged thate couldnco get through it. it was an event that literally ouaced all of our resources

almost immediately, literally outpaced all of the planning th had been done prior to this. and ultimately, people have to be responsible for their own safety. 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, pearson road. ahead of her, cars were already on fire and had been abandoned. >> i'm getting down intoinhis 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 at any moment. this is ridiculous, and i'm stuck behind these stupid (bleep). >> and i'm on my, on the phone to my husband, and i'm 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 trying, 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, "the car's filling up with smoke, i have to get out of the car." and he's, like, "get out and run." and i'm, like, "i can't get out and run, you don't understand, there's fire everywhere, and i can't run through fire." and he said, "you're going to have to." ♪ ♪

>> t>> town of paradise, almost more than any other town that i've heard of, had really thought about the issue of fire and evacuation, and they had a plan. and the plan was completely overwhelmed by circumstances. i think the circumstances were not unp ucedented. we have had a number of fires over the last several years prior to the camp p that had of the characteristics, in particular, e rate of spread and the total ineffectiveness of any kind of suppression efforts. >> narrator: climate cmange 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 evacuation

plan." but if the pn involves driving down a road like the one in paradise, that was essentially blockeby the fire, that's not a very good plan. the road is narrow and will becomeridlocked, not a nery good 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 for every community, foothill community in butte county. >> why, given that there have been very fast-moving fireg before, was it not part p the plning that it might 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 was something that was, that was ever envisioned. as far as modeling, we did plan for a rapidly 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 envisioned that 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 trapped 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's 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 heard a lady-- actually, iy,eard

three ladies. >> they were coughing, choking.. she had a hard time even telling me exactly where they were. >> they were in a room 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, refighters 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 degrees. >> i'm running up this hill, and 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 i was so he at that point. and i ended up touching the back of a fire engine, and i'm, like, "oh, yay, a , re engine." i sat in the center, and we were stuck, we were stopped. and i'm, like, "why aren't we moving?" and he's, like, "well, there's cars on fire all around us." look, we're in a fire engine, this is wh i this thing is built for, you know. it's, this thing's meant to go throthh fire. 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-black outside and zero visibility and knowing that that was impossible. i answered him back, inappropriately, uh, using his

first name. i said, "john, where are you?" >> nartor: determined to get to his colleagues, joe kenuedy drove a bulldozer through the 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 involved vehicles and moving them away the best i could. >> 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. they don't teach us how to move 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 safety. he continued working for another 24 hours..

>> he kept saving people on that road no a/c, no fire blankets, just glass ndows in the middle of this inferno. ♪ ♪ >> narrator: the fire had now burned around 20,000 aes and was visible from space. ♪ ♪ >> 21-54... (people talking on radio) >> our air-tac officer gave a report, where the fire was and how much was being impacted. and he basically said, "the fire's progressed all the way through town." and anesreports of civilians trapped and rescues,uend, youyo know, we'd already had reports of a lot of fatalities. >> 70 charlie... >> and by noon, we had conceded that the town had basically

burned down. (people talking on radio) tor: 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 towns. >> there was literally a point on the toad where it went from hell to, there was a sky again and there was air to breathe. d it wit this type of feeling that changes your whole tire life. "i just got this chance to be able to live again." >> my mom 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 to go, you need to get wn there, i see nick." and she's, like, "nichole, we'r' in a residential area-- i can't, i can't drive fast." and i'm, like, "then you need to let me out." and i got out of the car, and i ran fan er than she was driving, and i just grabbed onto my husband. and i'll never forget what he

said. he said, "i thought i almost lost you." and i'm, like, "i know." ♪ ♪ " " >> arrator: a week after the fire started, more than 5, firefighters were tackling the blaze, from thground and the sky. ♪ ♪ >> 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 the fire chief in that town, and

it was heartbreaking to see. ♪ ♪ >> narrator: paradise burned for over two weeks finally, the first winter rainss came and put the fire 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 people lost their homes. it took many weeks to identifyti those who died. >> it was actually thanksgiving day when they confirmed it. >> narrator: christina taft had not heard t om her mother since the morning ofinhe fire.e. >> she was found on the property in the living room.

she was still inside, she wasn't able to get out. and probably, 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 realized it was as bad as it was. i blamed myself, i blamed authority, i blamed the other people, i blamed a lot of things, and, um... i'm not really angry at her. people, i think they expect there's an emergency, they get notified. i think if we did have a order, it would have made a difference to my mom. ♪ ♪ >> narrator: 85 people perished the camp fire. the majority were over 65 years old. some were trapped in their cars, others were still in their homes. >> it breaks my heart that they got a false sense of surity.

it breaks my heart that i and anybany else that was answering the phone that day was not abl to give them more information, better information, faster information. it kind of snowballs on you. ♪ ♪ >> could you have got evacuation orders out to communitiethat were likely to be hit before they were hit?hi >> i mean, we can always monday, you know, monday quarterback it. i know what you're saying, but, , i mean, maybe, maybe five minutes earlier.ie but the issue wasn't how fast we notified ife public, it was how fast we uld get them off the hill. the ansportation system would only hold so many vehicles, 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 been much worse and there would have been more loss of life. it was bad. but this fire affected 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. >> it was two weeks later, my mom called me, and she was all like, "jordan..."

i knew what the phone call was, because, like,y mom doesn'tn' call to talk. she told me they found pop's body, and i was like, "yeah?" and then like, "yeah, they found thd bodyd n the home." and was like, "oh," and, 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, everything is gone except, you know, you go out to the back fence, and you see a 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. your mind, like, we,ts to make a image. 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. he was insanely tough and

smart, and he was a gentle giant. ♪ ♪ >> just going 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 will alwaysemember. november 8erill always be a ll just... seared in 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 against pg&e, the company whose power line had started the fire. >> is what pg&e did-- or did not do-- grossly negligent? something that is beyond, ll beyond ordinary negligence?

one of the charges that we're looking at under california penal code section 452 is reckless arson. "to prove the defende t is guiltyf this crime, the people must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that, one, the defendant ed to ed burned property, uh, or forest land"-- pretty simple. we've got that. that the fired burned an inhabited structure or the fire caused great bodily injury to another person. ay, we've got structures-- nearly 1000, 85 people. got that element. the element that is the-the last elemen it says, "and the defendant did so recklessly." >> narrator:g&e has a long history of safety violations and a criminal conviction for a gas explosion in 2010. its equipment has been linked to many destructive fires in california in recent years.

>> this is a company that, it was fined 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 would be in prison. there's just been repeat offenders, they've been on probation, they've violated the probation. the problem is you can't take a corporation and put it into prison. >> narrator: in the months after the fire, reporters at "the wall street journal" discovered that pg&e had been warned its transmission towers were aging and that com cnents might fail. >> in 2010, they had an outside contractor come in and they looked at this and said, "thed verage age of your towers is 68 years old, but the mean life expectancy 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 place, and if there's a problem with one of them, we'll go out and fix it." >> without climate change, the consequences of failure of a smission line, it's

relatively modest. it falls down, perhaps, or... and it causea fire, and the fire department comes and puts it out. so, the system has been maintained, you know, with some preventive maintenance but also with a philosophy th it can be run until it breaks. the thing is that the costs have changed. the ris have chaed. >> narrator: pg&e declined 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 camp fire and nonetheless deferred work that would have addressed those conditions." it added, "since 2010 pg&e has spent hundreds of millions on line preventative work". >> pg&e is taking this aordinary 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 nd, we're

just going to shut off the power." and it's sort of a stunning thing to think about, but there increasingly, um, are days, and-and multiple days in rthern california, where communities suddenly d't have power anymore. >> narrator: pg&e has now filed for bankruptcy protection because liabilities arising 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 first real climate adaptatn problemslehat at least america has confronted.ed and this is not a static problem. we have a problem that's going to grow wo ge inevitably over the next several decades. >> narrator: some scientists believe that fires in california could increase in size dramatically by the middle of the century if temperatures continue to rise. >> everything was perfect that for a massive, destructive incident to do what it did. and it's in place everywhere.

everywhere in california, arizona, nevada, washington, oregon. and it's like whe 's... you don't even want to think about it, like, "what's next? can it be worse than that?" and the answer is yes. ♪ ♪ >> the more data, the better the ai works. in the age of ai where data is the new oil, china is the new saudi arabia. there will be a chinese tech sector and therthwill be an american tech sector. >> machines are tomating some of our skills. >> when i increase productivity through automation, jobs go away. >> it has pervaded so many elements of everyday life. how do we make it transparent and accountable? >> go to pbs.org/front ne for more on pg&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. i think if we did have an order it would have made a difference to my mom. >> connect to the frontline community on facebook and twitter, and watch anytime on the pbs video app or pbs.org/frontlintl >> frontline is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. and by the corporation for public broadcasting. major support is provided by the john d. and catherine t. 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 fordfoundatioorg. ditional support is iovided by the abrams foundation, committed to excellence in journalism. the park foundation, decated to heightening public awareness of critical sues. the john and helen glessner family trust. supporting trustworthy

journalism that informs and inspires. and by the frontline journalism fund, with major support from jon and jo ann hagler. and additional support from laura debonis and scott nathan. captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> for more on this and other "frontrone" programs, visit our website at pbs.org/frontline. ♪ ♪ to order frontline'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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