Johnson does an excellent job of capturing this tragic episode of recent California wildfire history. Blending local Native American legend with events in the lives of the residents of Paradise when the fire that nearly destroyed their town struck, she masterfully tells a tale of a community facing destruction by the fury of nature.

I was excited about this one, but unfortunately it was a miss. Despite the timely topic and important discussion on the reasons behind the fires, I didn’t think the book warranted over 400 pages. I could have gleaned most of it in an online article. This had too much narrative that read as filler.

Nonfiction | Adult
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Wildfires are scorching nations around the world; this year, we’re seeing them in British Columbia, California, Greece, Turkey, northern Africa, and many many more places. We’re hearing daily about lost homes, lost lives, and scientists’ desperate call for immediate and decisive action on climate change. This book offers a devastating view of what is in store if we don’t take action, focusing on the 2018 wildfire in California that caught everyone’s attention when the entire town of Paradise, in the Sierra Nevada mountains, was essentially burned to the ground. Johnson, an experienced reporter with the San Francisco Chronicle and now the Washington Post, covered the aftermath of the fire, speaking with devastated residents and exhausted firefighters, paramedics, town leaders and more. She attended the hearing that found Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) partly responsible due to its shoddy maintenance standards, and interviewed literally hundreds of people to create this minute-by-minute analysis of the fire that effectively destroyed a small city, and killed 89 people. The 2018 Camp fire started around 6:30 a.m. and by 8:30 a.m. it was engulfing the town surrounded by pines, mountains, and wind-filled draws. We witness the terrifying escape of a new mum with an hours-old infant in her arms, the desperate pleas by a 911 dispatcher for her neighbours to leave, the equivocating of town officials who didn’t want to create a panic evacuation, the errors and failures of the alert systems, and throughout, many heroic efforts to save strangers and friends, family and colleagues. Johnson also raises the difficult questions about the factors that made this fire impossible to stop, the ethics of rebuilding, the difficulty of getting politicians to take necessary but unpopular action, and the role of utilities (power and communications) in both creating fires and creating obstacles to evacuation. The book is extensively endnoted. I was reviewing an e-edition, so I didn’t see any photographs, but I’d be surprised if there aren’t any in the print editions. The book ends with the names and ages of 88 victims of the fire, plus one unidentified person. This is a powerful story that guts the reader over and over again. Awards are pending, I’m sure of it. It should be required reading for everyone who wants to better understand the threat wildfire presents to all of us, unless we start making big changes now. My thanks to Crown Publishing for the advance reading copy provided digitially through NetGalley.
More discussion and reviews of this book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56024292, plus this starred review from Kirkus. <link>

A great depiction of the devastating California camp fire. The author did a great job describing the terror as residents tried to escape to safety.

I received an unpublished ARC of this book from Netgalley, Lizzie Johnson, and Crown Publishing. I have read Paradise: One Town's Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. I want everyone to read this book.

Paradise is a close and personal look at the trials and tribulations of the families impacted by the northern California Camp Creek Fire which sparked to life on November 8, 2018. We are involved with their lives, their dreams, their children, their jobs. We have timely input from the legends of the Konkow tribe native to that area. We get to know and appreciate the fire squads who do so much to keep us all protected. And we see the efforts involved in tackling a blaze gone rampant, just four hours from that first spark the Camp fire wiped out the town of Paradise. 85 dead, 52,000 people displaced. And we see the cost of our way of life, and the absence of shame after the acts of PG&E that set into play this horror. Another book we all need to read, absorb. And learn from.

This is a comprehensive account of the Camp Fire and how it affected the town of Paradise, California. Lizzie Johnson does an exceptional job taking us through the events of that unforgettable tragedy. It is clear that she spent extensive amounts of time in Paradise getting to know the people whose lives were irrevocably changed on November 8, 2018. There is a rush to blame climate change for the fires, but the book also brings some other issues to light as well. What about the negligence of PGE in not maintaining their equipment? The line hook that came loose early that day had been overlooked as a part of mandatory maintenance for decades. What about the lack of stewardship of our forested areas. Controlled burns are necessary to nurture and revive the plants and trees that inhabit those spaces. What about the spaces we are choosing to build our homes? Just because we want to live there, should we? Finally, are the wildfires themselves causing climate change to accelerate?

Thank you to Crown Publishing for a DRC in exchange for an honest review.

A classic example of fine narrative nonfiction.

You’ve probably heard about the devastating 2018 Camp Fire in California and the tragedy of a little town of Paradise. As I am interested in the wildfires, I have read a lot of articles about it, even watched a documentary. But there is no better way to tell such a story then through carefully reconstructed minute-to-minute doings of people who survived it. The author did her homework - she spent five years on the research and conducted more than five hundred interviews. The result is impressive, if sometimes a little overwhelming. In addition to this personal recollections, a reader will find also interesting background, spanning from the history of the settlement in California to the various methods of fighting the wildfires.

It is a perfect book for another summer that is too hot to bear, with natural disasters nonstop in the news. Maybe such vivid stories will make more people aware of the danger that we are all in because of the climate crisis.

Thanks to the publisher, Crown, and NetGalley for the advance copy of this book.

Do you live in an area prone to some natural disaster? I live in Oklahoma, so we always have to be weather aware for heat index and for tornadoes. When I lived in New Mexico the sandstorms were so bad, the paint could be stripped off your car. In California people must be aware of earthquakes or wildfires.

Wild fire is the subject in the book Paradise by Lizzie Johnson. She researched the 2018 disaster, logging many hours of interviews with people who survived the devastation.

The book reads more like a thriller than a nonfiction book. She tells the events from several people’s vantage point and keeps the reader glued to the pages as the fire rages, gobbling up an entire town and 86 souls.
I would recommend this to people who desire to know more about the Camp Fire Road fire that destroyed 240 square miles of land which included the town of Paradise.

Thank you #netgalley #paradise and #crownpublishing for an advanced copy of this book. Opinions expressed are my own.

One Town’s Struggle to Survive and American Wildfire

Paradis, California

“Paradise” is a brutal account of the deadliest wildfire in California history. The author, an investigative reporter, narrates in detail what she has drawn out from firsthand accounts, reports from 911calls, residents, officials and fire department workers.

November 2018,” Camp Fire”

The fire was fast less than two hours after it started, Paradis was engulfed in flames. Balancing horror with compassion Ms. Johnson notes that management’s practices had allowed the woods to become diseased and overgrown this with neglect on the part of Pacific Gas and Electric Company were the key factor for this disaster. The details are horrifying and overwhelming. The account of young mother fleeing with her newborn, a school full of children in search of an escape route, medics, nurses as well as patients trapped. Heartbreaking: The list of victims and where they were found. The fire nearly leveled the town of Paradise and the surrounding areas...This is a gripping, edge of your seat read.

The investigation: brought PG&E to their knees

The verdict: “Guilty: PG&E enters pleas for 85 Camp Fire felonies

It took time and heart to gives us this well-researched and reported account. Kudos to you Ms. Johnson you definitely painted a horrific picture of a wild fire out of control....

San Francisco Chronicle’s Lizzie Johnson reported on her first fire in 2015 and within five years had reported from thirty communities devastated by fire and been one of three women in a class of fifty to attend a two-week professional firefighting school. Her experienced voice and vivid reportorial skills have now produced Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire—an account of the 2018 so-called “Camp Fire” killing more than eighty people and in only four hours destroying much of Paradise, California, once a town of 26,500 north of Sacramento. This is story-telling that reads like fiction but is all too frighteningly real.

Johnson divides her book into five parts, respectively titled “Kindling,” “Spark,” “Conflagration,” “Containment,” and “Ash.” Each part begins with--and occasionally ends with--fragments of a Konkow legend shared by two tribe members during a March 2019 tour of the Camp Fire burn zone given to the author and two dozen other civilians and politicians. Passed from generation to generation, the legend tells of a massive ancient fire accidentally started by two young boys throwing pitch pine sticks into a small campfire. The legend adds context to the Paradise fire. The 2018 fire was not the first and will not be the last, but the legend also offers hope for the future if people learn to love and care for the environment.

As her subtitle hints, Taylor brings the town of Paradise to life, telling the stories of many people who lived and of some who died there. Readers learn of their daily lives before the fire, witness rescues, come to understand the loss and change wrought upon the community, and feel hope as remaining residents began to rebuild.
In the early morning of Nov. 8, 2018, Captain Matt McKenzie, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, watches dry pine needles drop like rain. Butte county has received only 0.88 inches of rain in the months since May 1. Gale force winds are blowing throughout the area. The slightest mishap such as a lawn mower hitting a rock or a car’s catalytic converter emitting hot carbon could send out a spark that, in turn, could ignite a wildfire. Kevin, a husband and father, is beginning his long commute. ER Nurse Supervisor Bev Roberson enters the hospital main doors with her coffee mug. Ed Beltran, a charge nurse, examines his melted plastic name badge, which had been struck by a flaming stick that had blown into his chest, burning a hole in his scrubs Hospital staff has been ordered to lower window shades so patients cannot see the “blood-red horizon and charcoal showers.” Shortly after 8:00 a. m. Cal Fire Emergency Command Center phones the Paradise Police dispatcher ordering mandatory citywide evacuation.

As Taylor continues her account, other local residents’ stories fill the pages. As power fails, Dane Cummings, a trash collector, worries that people unable to open their garage doors might not be able to escape their homes. He soon rescues 93-year-old Margaret Newsum. He gathers her prescriptions and hangs her walker from the back of his trash truck before leaving her home. A man refuses to evacuate because he cannot catch his cat. Miraculously, his home is spared, and he survives. A woman who will not leave her cats is not so lucky; she perishes in the blaze. In the aftermath of the fire, trained dogs sniff for any signs of human bodies--“bone fragments, molars, dentures, surgical implants.” Body bags and buckets containing fragments of remains arrive at a makeshift morgue. A week after the fire, the Paradise Town Council convenes in Chico, soon abandoning the agenda set before the fire. What is the sense in discussing road improvements now that most of Paradise is gone, and far more serious matters need addressing? These are just a small sampling of the human stories that make up part of the Paradise fire’s frightening history.

Historian Erik Larson, author of such books as The Devil in White City and The Splendid and the Vile, writes, “In this reportorial tour de force, Lizzie Johnson captures the orange-black hell of the Paradise wildfire in wrenching, skin-singing detail. You can smell the smoke, feel the super-heated air. After reading this book I wanted to clear all brush and trees away from my home—and I live in Manhattan.” Regardless of where they live, many readers may share Larson’s feeling.

Thanks to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for an advance reader copy in exchange for an unbiased review.

This book is so good. I really got attached to the people in Paradise. It is so sad that these fires are happening even today. These companies who contribute to these fires need to be held more responsible than they are. This book taught me alot. Read it!!! I gave it 3 stars, because even though it was really interesting, I found myself having to make myself pick it up.

Lizzie Johnson has painstakingly documented the unfolding ferocious Camp Fire tragedy of Butte, Montana, the most aggressive wildfire in California History. An incredibly heartbreaking and devastating story.

This investigative account of the Camp Fire that destroyed Paradise, CA in November of 2018 had me riveted. Johnson's comprehensive story follows three individuals as they live through the day that Paradise nearly became a memory. The personal accounts are heart-breaking and challenging to read. I was in tears reading about the horrific fire storm that took 85+ human lives. Interspersed with facts about climate change, fire science, and wildfire history as well as colonial forest management and the psychology of disaster response, this heavily researched account covers every aspect of what brought the town to its knees on that day. Johnson uses Konkow (Native American) Legend at intervals throughout the book as a cautionary tale to parallel the events as they unfold on November 8, 2018. The terror of the wild fire comes to life on the page through the many perspectives as Johnson unflinchingly reports the facts while leaving the reader to form opinions. I am a Californian and this books hits close to home. This is a must read for anyone trying to understand the effects of climate change and how population growth has compounded the challenges of preventing and fighting fires. I learned a lot from the stories of those who suffered through that day. Thank you to Lizzie Johnson for writing such a compassionate, clear, and intimate book.

A compelling and harrowing tale that sticks to you like the smell of smoke in your hair for weeks afterward. Lizzie Johnson's writing is poignant and emotional, and the story proves fact is scarier than fiction. Read this to wake up feeling grateful for everything you have.

True crime is one of my favorite genres and I just don’t see all that many books coming out, as opposed to another genre like romance. If you are into true stories too, then you will have to read Paradise by Lizzie Johnson. This is an intriguing, compelling, and heartbreaking story.

Synopsis:

On November 8, 2018, the people of Paradise, California, awoke to a mottled gray sky and gusty winds. Soon the Camp Fire was upon them, gobbling an acre a second. Less than two hours after the fire ignited, the town was engulfed in flames, the residents trapped in their homes and cars. By the next morning, eighty-five people were dead.

San Francisco Chronicle reporter Lizzie Johnson was there as the town of Paradise burned. She saw the smoldering rubble of a historic covered bridge and the beloved Black Bear Diner and she stayed long afterward, visiting shelters, hotels, and makeshift camps. Drawing on years of on-the-ground reporting and reams of public records, including 911 calls and testimony from a grand jury investigation, Johnson provides a minute-by-minute account of the Camp Fire, following residents and first responders as they fight to save themselves and their town. We see a young mother fleeing with her newborn; a school bus full of children in search of an escape route; and a group of paramedics, patients, and nurses trapped in a cul-de-sac, fending off the fire with rakes and hoses.

In Paradise, Johnson documents the unfolding tragedy with empathy and nuance. But she also investigates the root causes, from runaway climate change to a deeply flawed alert system to Pacific Gas and Electric’s decades-long neglect of critical infrastructure. A cautionary tale for a new era of megafires, Paradise is the gripping story of a town wiped off the map and the determination of its people to rise again.

Highly recommended! Out on August 17.

Thank you Netgalley and Crown Publishing for sharing the ARC of this upcoming non fiction account of the Paradise CA fire. Excellent journalism, although if you know a lot about the fire already, you may not learn many new facts. The author does a masterful job putting the reader there during the evacuation of the town and shows a lot of empathy for the people who lived the events she retells. Recommended.

Lizzie does an excellent job of capturing the very real danger of wildfires. Wildfires can be extremely terrifying and devastating, and the author did a really great job of bringing to life each person mentioned. Paradise is really insightful and human and explores California's Camp Fire in a way that highlights prevention and safety. It's a really riveting read and I highly recommend it.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and believe it stands on a par with the non-fiction written by Jon Krakauer (Into Thin Air) and Erik Larson (Devil & the White City, In the Garden of the Beast, etc.)--yes, it's that good! The author, Lizzie Johnson, is in her late twenties, yet her writing seems that of someone more experienced than one would think possible from someone so young. An investigative reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, she does a beautiful job of combining the history of wild fires in California (drought, global warming, etc.), governmental responses to the increase in fires and regulation (or not) of PG&E (Pacific Gas & Electric) with the real-life tragedies that befell so many individuals on the day of the Camp Fire that destroyed Paradise, CA. Johnson's writing style is clear and engaging as well as suspenseful--from her descriptions of the earliest minutes of the fire all the way through to the aftermath. She avoids a simple linear story telling style, leaving her readers at the end of a chapter, wondering what will happen to the individual whose story she is telling in that particular chapter--picking up in the next chapter with a story that had begun maybe 2 or 3 chapters previously. It drives the reader to keep reading and makes the book so difficult to put down! There is also a third stream of the story that tells the story of an Indian tribal story passed through the ages of a fire god and the tribal people--a fable that she first heard while reporting on the Camp Fire. The book is tightly written, well edited with no extraneous information.

Thanks Net Galley for the opportunity to read a pre-publication copy of this book!

This book, filled with first-hand accounts, is a wildfire of a read. Forest fires are devastating and Paradise brought all the news reports and made them personal. This is a must-read for anyone who likes first-hand accounts of disasters.

Thank you NetGalley and Crown Publishing for the opportunity to read an advance reading copy.

A horrific, harrowing, real and first hand account of the wildfire in Paradise, California in 2018, deemed the "Camp Fire." Lizzie Johnson is a a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle and her account of this made the feel like you were there. Wildfires scare me the most about being a now California resident even though I live in Southern California, very close to the coast. Wildfires change everything.

If you want to learn more about the wildfire in Paradise and what happened in the fallout, this is a good start. Fire in Paradise by Alaistair Gee is also a good one BUT this book is a firsthand account about someone who was there just after it happened. Heartbreaking and so final.

Recommended but not light reading.

Thanks to Netgalley, Lizzie Johnson and Crown Publishing for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Available: 8/17/21