In Fire Scorched California, Town Aims To Buy The Highest At-Risk Properties
Decimated by the deadly Camp Fire in 2018, Paradise, Calif., is now moving to acquire some high-risk properties and turn them into managed park land to buffer against future wildfires.
By the heat of the afternoon, smoke from the largest wildfire burning in the U.S., the Dixie Fire, drifts into Paradise, Calif.
"Quite literally, it's hanging over your head," says Dan Efseaff, director of the Paradise Recreation and District.
For many locals, seeing and smelling the smoke is a constant if ominous reminder of the 2018 Camp Fire, which killed 85 people and destroyed some 19,000 structures here. The Dixie Fire ignited in nearly the same place.
"We had some days, [with] the sun blocked out, it was dark as night," Efseaff says, as he steers his SUV off of a highway lined on both sides by stumps from logged, charred pine trees. It's then a right turn down a narrow, steep winding dirt road leading to the
