![]() On 1900 railroad maps, Paradise was labeled “Paradice,” giving rise to the yarn that it was named after the “Pair O’ Dice” saloon. Place names on maps reflect that colorful history: Flea Canyon, Deadwood, Dogtown and Helltown. They are paved incarnations of what Stewart called “dirt trails from the Gold Rush.” The roads were largely laid by gold miners and railroads, whose interests were in threading canyons and ridges on the western slope of the Sierra to reach rich mineral deposits rather than move large numbers of people out. “It would have worked if they had six hours to move, instead of two.”īut the modern Paradise disaster plan relied on a transportation infrastructure that dates to horse-pulled wagons. “I think their plan would have worked for the 97th percentile fire,” said Bill Stewart, co-director of the Berkeley Forests program at UC Berkeley. ![]() “Unless you had some kind foresight to say there’s going to be a big fire and it’s going to jump the creek and it’s going to burn down the whole town.” “There’s just no way to prepare for what happened,” John said. All of this work “saved literally thousands of lives,” John said. And some 70 people participated in a recent drill, rehearsing an evacuation down the town’s main thoroughfare. They adopted protocols to convert two-way streets into one-way evacuation routes during times of crises. The solution created by Paradise city leaders was a plan that evacuated sections of the city at a time, said Phil John, chairman of the Paradise Ridge Fire Safe Council. ![]() They clamored for local officials to come up with a plan. Residents trying to flee the 2008 fires were caught in massive traffic jams, flames burning on both sides of the road as they sat trapped in their cars.
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