For Caltrans PIO, Camp Fire hit too close to home

Note: Public Information Officer Raquel Borrayo wrote this story for the District 3 newsletter.

I was born and raised in Paradise and spent most of my life in the small town in the mountains. Of course, there were stints away for college or various jobs, but I seemed to always return to the area where my family lived before leaving once again to accept a job with Caltrans.

The day of the Camp Fire was only my eighth day as a public information officer for Caltrans District 3. I was already at work, checking social media when initial reports of evacuations in Paradise started rolling in. I did not live in Paradise at the time of the 2008 fire, but the aftermath taught the town a lesson in preparation. So it was easy to pull up the evacuation zone map and follow along as the sheriff’s office continued to tweet evacuation orders for new zones.

I recall telling my grandparents, who lived in Magalia, that they should pack their things and grab important documents and medication. Their zone wasn’t yet evacuated, but it paid to be ready. I also spoke with my mom, who works at the Paradise Irrigation District. The mobile home park behind her Clark Road office was on fire and she was evacuating, but couldn’t make it home to Magalia to grab anything of importance.

As new evacuation orders reached Magalia, I once again called my grandparents and told them they needed to evacuate and it would be wise to head north through Butte Meadows to Highway 32. Like many adults of an older generation, they were not pleased to leave their home and didn’t evacuate with much, thinking they would be returning a short time later.

Throughout most of the day, I watched as the fire zone spread throughout my hometown. Around 3 p.m. I was asked to head to the field to document what was happening in the area.

I’m not sure words can properly describe the feeling of watching your hometown burn and knowing that thousands of lives are being changed in the span of hours. I also knew that lives would be lost given the rate the fire spread. As night descended and the fire spread closer to Highway 99, I stopped at Neal Road and looked up toward Paradise. The fire was an orange glow in a black sky and I knew it was likely that my aunt and uncle who lived off Neal Road had lost their home for the second time in a wildfire.

The next morning, I woke up early and drove up Highway 191 to Paradise to document damage to the highway. Driving into Paradise was crushing. It seemed like everything had been destroyed with de-energized power lines laying across the roads with some areas still on fire or smoldering. I hope I never again have to call family members to tell them their home has been lost.

For me, one of the hardest things about my mom’s and grandparent’s homes burning to the ground is the loss of history. I now have very few photos of myself as a baby, kid or teen because they were all lost in the fire.

We are also a creative family who loved decorating for the holidays with storage tote after storage tote full of handmade and purchased holiday cheer stowed in a crawl space. Living in an apartment, all of my decorations were stored at my mom’s house, including hand-painted ornaments and figurines that I had been crafting since elementary school. Sorting through the rubble a month later, we did find a blackened ceramic mouse ornament, one of the first things I had ever painted.

Since the fire, my grandparents and mom have moved into newly built developments in Chico. My aunt and uncle and two cousins are planning to rebuild in Paradise with some work already underway. For now, I’m slowly rebuilding my holiday decoration collection and enjoying the Christmas season with my family, who all made it safely out of the fire.