It’s been six months since two of the deadliest and most destructive fires in California’s history: the Woolsey Fire and the Camp Fire.
The natural world is showing signs of renewal after the Woolsey Fire. But many survivors — especially those displaced by the devastating Camp Fire — are still struggling.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in and around Paradise, the Butte County town that the Camp Fire all but reduced to ash.
On Tuesday, I spoke to Tara Morrow, one of the roughly 3,000 people who have been able to move back into the community, to see how things were going.
During the day, she said, crews are still cleaning up debris. At night, she said, “the town turns into a ghost town.” She finds herself locking her doors, even when she’s at home — something she never did before.
Still, Morrow said that’s all bearable. She’s grateful to have been able to return to a building that’s still standing on the property where her family has lived for generations.
Paying for gas? That’s another story.
“Oh my gosh, I try not to look,” she said when I asked how much she’s spent since the fire. “If I really thought about it, it would make me sick.”
Climbing gas prices throughout the state recently caught the attention of Gov. Gavin Newsom, who called for a special investigation into the matter.
For survivors of the Camp Fire, the prices — hovering near $4 a gallon — compound the difficulties of daily life.
Morrow said the fire had essentially spread all the places she needs to be farther apart.
Her husband’s commute used to be 2 miles to Feather River Hospital. Now it’s a 30-mile round trip to Enloe Medical Center in Chico. Two of her children are high school students, who have their own schedules — so they each take separate cars to school, now far away.
Her 8-year-old now goes to school in Durham, 20 miles away — as opposed to the elementary school less than 1 mile away. All told, she said, she’s spending roughly $150 a week on gas.
I also spoke with Randi Hall, who grew up mostly in Paradise. Now, she said, she’ll never set foot in the town again.
“There’s always the thought of, ‘Am I standing somewhere where someone died?’ ” she said.
Now, she’s living with her boyfriend, her young daughter and a puppy in a 35-foot RV in Biggs, a town about a 45-minute drive south of Paradise. She’s also pregnant, and suffers from lingering health problems from a work injury.
Hall said she used to fill her tank for $30 and it would last her over a week. Now, every trip, every doctor’s appointment, every counseling session for her daughter, is upward of 40 miles.
A full tank lasts about two days.
“Gas is killing us,” she said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.