Camp Fire 2018 Part II

 

Economic impacts

The volume of insurance claims overwhelmed Merced Property and Casualty Company, a small insurer founded in 1906, to the point of insolvency (policyholders' surplus $25 million). In response to a notice given by the company, the California Department of Insurance reviewed and then placed it into liquidation. This allows the California Insurance Guarantee Association, a state guaranty association, to cover claims. The Department of Insurance will continue with a review of all insurers with a domicile in California so to determine the exposure of each to Camp Fire losses. An estimate by the Los Angeles Times of Merced Property and Casualty Company's assets and reinsurance shows that they would only be able to cover 150 homes out of the 14,000 homes destroyed in a region where they were one of the only companies that still provided fire insurance policies despite the region being categorized as a high fire-hazard severity zone by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. This is the only known instance of an insurance company becoming insolvent from a single event.

On November 16, the Chico city council passed an emergency ordinance to prohibit price gouging in Chico, by preventing the cost of rent, goods or services from being increased by more than 10 percent for six months.

The Camp Fire was the most expensive natural disaster in the world in 2018 in terms of insured losses. The firm Munich Re estimated that the fire caused $12.5 billion in covered losses and $16 billion in total losses.

PG&E bankruptcy

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Facing potential liabilities of $30 billion from the wildfire, the electrical utility that was responsible for the transmission line suspected of sparking the wildfire, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), on January 14, 2019, began the process of filing for bankruptcy with a 15-day notice of intention to file for bankruptcy protection. On January 29, 2019, PG&E Corporation, the parent corporation of PG&E, filed for bankruptcy protection. Because fire survivors are unsecured creditors with the same priority as bondholders, they will only be paid in proportion to their claim size if anything is left after secured and priority claims are paid; it nearly ensures that they will not get paid in full. PG&E had a deadline of June 30, 2020 to exit bankruptcy in order to participate in the California state wildfire insurance fund established by AB 1054 that helps utilities pay for future wildfire claims.

PG&E settled for $1 billion with state and local governments in June, 2019, and settled for $11 billion with insurance carriers and hedge funds in September, 2019. Claims for wildfire victims consist of wrongful death, personal injuries, property loss, business losses, and other legal damages. Representatives for wildfire victims said PG&E owed $54 billion or more, and PG&E was offering $8.4 billion for fire damages, Cal Fire, and FEMA. FEMA originally requested PG&E for $3.9 billion from the wildfire victims fund, threatening to take the money from individual wildfire victims if PG&E did not pay, and Cal OES had an overlapping $2.3 billion request, but they later settled for $1 billion after all wildfire victims are paid.

On November 12, 2019, PG&E in its proposed reorganization plan provided an additional $6.6 billion for the claims of wildfire victims and other claimants, increasing the amount to $13.5 billion. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), this puts the total amount for fire claims at $25.5 billion. This consists of $11 billion to insurance companies and investment funds, $1 billion to state and local governments, and $13.5 billion for other claims.

On December 6, 2019, PG&E proposed to settle the wildfire victim claims for a total of $13.5 billion, which would cover liability for its responsibility originating from the Camp Fire, Tubbs Fire, Butte Fire, Ghost Ship warehouse fire, and also a series of wildfires beginning on October 8, 2017, collectively called the 2017 North Bay Fires. The offer was tendered as part of PG&E's plan to exit bankruptcy. Wildfire victims will get half of their $13.5 billion settlement as stock shares in the reorganized company, adding to the uncertainty as to when and how much they will be paid. On June 12, 2020, because of uncertainties in the value of the liquidated stock, in part because of the financial market impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, PG&E agreed to increase the amount of stock.

On June 16, 2020, PG&E pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter for those that died in the Camp Fire, for which it will pay the maximum fine of $3.5 million and end all further criminal charges against PG&E. This action does not alleviate PG&E of any future civil claims by victims of the Camp Fire which would fall outside the bankruptcy proceedings, as well as how existing litigation against PG&E may be handled.

On Saturday, June 20, 2020, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali issued the final approval of the plan for the reorganized PG&E to exit bankruptcy,meeting the June 30, 2020 deadline for PG&E to qualify for the California state wildfire insurance fund for utilities.

Fire Victim Trust

On July 1, 2020, the PG&E Fire Victim Trust (FVT) was established as part of the reorganization plan of the 2019 bankruptcy of PG&E to administer the claims of the wildfire victims. Also on July 1, PG&E funded the FVT with $5.4 billion in cash and 22.19% of stock in the reorganized PG&E, which covered most of the obligations of its settlement for the wildfire victims. PG&E had two more payments totaling $1.35 billion in cash that were paid in January 2021 and January 2022 to complete its obligations to the wildfire victims. For additional funding, on January 28, 2021, the FVT sued multiple PG&E contractors responsible for tree trimming, infrastructure inspections and maintenance for breach of contract and neglect, and on February 24, 2021, sued 22 former PG&E officers and directors for breach of fiduciary duty by failing to put in place policies and practices to respond to deficient tree trimming work and aging infrastructure. On September 29, 2022, the FVT announced that they had settled the lawsuit against PG&E's former officers and directors for $117 million.

Initially, the Trustee, the Honorable John K. Trotter (Ret.), and the Claims Administrator, Cathy Yanni, were in charge of the FVT. On July 1, 2022, Cathy Yanni became Trustee of the FVT, replacing Justice John Trotter. Claimants are wildfire victims from the 2015 Butte Fire, 2017 North Bay Fires, and 2018 Camp Fire in Northern California. The 2017 Tubbs Fire is considered to be one of the 2017 North Bay Fires. Victims of the 2019 Kincade Fire are not covered by the FVT. Victims of the 2016 Ghost Ship warehouse fire are not covered by the FVT, but by PG&E's insurance coverage for the year 2016.

Claims for wildfire victims include real estate and personal property, personal income loss, business loss, wrongful death, personal injury, emotional distress, zone of danger, and nuisance claims. Wildfire victims will be paid in cash, funded partly from the cash portion of the settlement, and partly from 478 million shares of PG&E stock that will be liquidated into cash on a schedule and at a price that is not yet determined. Starting November 23, 2020, the FVT began issuing Preliminary Payments up to $25,000 for those with significant losses. There were 71,394 wildfire victims who filed claims by the deadline of February 26, 2021. Starting March 15, 2021, the FVT began issuing the first installment of Pro Rata Payments (partial payments) to eligible claimants. This first installment was 30% of the Approved Claim Amount for their damages, because the total amount of money available to the FVT is unknown. Starting February 15, 2022, the FVT began issuing payments with a Pro Rata of 45%, meaning that those that had already received a payment would get a supplemental payment, and payments made after February 15, 2022, would be at 45%. As of September 30, 2022, there were 244,292 distinct claims that had been filed, and the FVT had distributed $5.08 billion to 49,301 wildfire victims.

Investigation

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and state utility regulators investigated Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) to determine if they complied with state laws in the areas burned in the fire. The Associated Press noted the fire started near a property where PG&E detected sparks on the day before its outbreak. PG&E was convicted of a felony due to a gas pipeline explosion in 2010 and is on probation, which means penalties for subsequent crimes are enhanced. PG&E also reported damage to the Caribou-Palermo transmission line 15 minutes before flames were first reported under the wires; the same line was previously damaged in a windstorm in December 2012.

Investigators believe that the failure of a badly maintained steel hook holding up a high voltage line was a key cause of the fire. A PG&E report to CPUC on December 11, 2018, said that "it had found a hook designed to hold up power lines on the tower was broken before the fire, and that the pieces showed wear."

A distribution line in Concow malfunctioned a half hour later, which was considered as a possible second ignition source. On November 11, PG&E employees saw bullets and bullet holes on pole equipment from the Big Bend distribution line affected by that outage, and downed wires, damaged poles and fallen trees about two thirds of a mile away.

Following the fire, multiple fire victims sued PG&E and its parent company in San Francisco County Superior Court before a definite cause had been determined, accusing PG&E of failure to properly maintain its infrastructure and equipment. In mid-May 2019, California state investigators announced that PG&E was responsible for the fire. The Cal Fire report was sent to the Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey.

The hook that failed, ultimately causing the Camp Fire, was given by the Butte County District Attorney's office to the Golden Nugget Museum in Paradise for its exhibit on the fire.

Response

First responders

While successful in evacuating nearly the entire town of Paradise, first responders were limited by an insufficient number of cell phone repeaters, which resulted in communication difficulties and reduced Internet speed: "Paradise quickly lost its equipment, the California Public Utilities Commission confirmed." The wildfire alert system was similarly hampered by damaged cell towers; 17 towers burned the first day. Many residents didn't sign up for the warnings, some neighborhoods for some reason did not receive any warnings, and the failure rate of the warnings that did get sent ranged from 25 to 94 percent.

Randall L. Stephenson, AT&T CEO, committed to fixing this problem, as AT&T added mobile repeaters to improve coverage. Two weeks into the fire, 66 cell repeaters were still damaged or out of service, and the remaining cell infrastructure was overloaded.

Only two dispatchers were on duty to field thousands of calls to 911.

Initial widespread confusion about reporting missing people limited the search for victims. The Butte County Sheriff's Office opened a call center, staffed daily from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., to provide and receive information and inquiries on missing persons.

The North Valley Animal Disaster Group worked with law enforcement and other shelters, rescue groups and independent operations to rescue and reunite pets and families, and established an animal shelter at the Chico Airport.

Fire resources were stretched as the fire began on the same day as the Woolsey Fire and the Hill Fire in Southern California. Camp Fire resource requests alone equalled the entire 6,000 Cal Fire full-time fire professionals. Both fires pulled resources from 17 states to respond.

By the second day of the fire, only half the fire resources had assembled. The initial response within Paradise was shouldered by Paradise's three fire engines in stations 81, 82, and 83, and the two engines at Butte County Cal Fire Station 35.

At the height of deployment, there were 5,596 firefighters (including 770 inmate firefighters), 622 engines, 75 water tenders, 101 fire crews, 103 bulldozers, 24 helicopters, and 12 fixed-wing aircraft.

On the morning of ignition, high winds limited fixed-wing air support. By that afternoon, calming winds allowed for nine fixed-wing aircraft on the fire, including five 1,200-gallon S-2 Trackers, three 3,000-gallon BAE 146s, and one 12,000-gallon DC-10 Air Tanker. Eventually, three additional aircraft were deployed from out of state, including two 1,620-gallon CL-415 Super Scoopers that arrived from their home in Washington on November 9 and a 19,600-gallon 747 Supertanker that arrived from its home in Colorado on November 11 after gaining a contract to work on federal land.

The California National Guard activated 700 soldiers to assist, including 100 military police officers from the 49th Brigade to provide security and search for remains with the assistance of 22 cadaver dogs. The 2632nd Transportation company provided haul trucks. The 140th Regiment provided air support. The 224th Sustainment Brigade constructed Alaska tents for temporary facilities.

Evacuation centers

From November 8 to December 1, an encampment formed in a vacant lot next to the Walmart store in nearby Chico. The camp was in addition to motel room vouchers from FEMA and ten shelters established by the Red Cross and churches to house evacuees. Over a hundred people had become ill with norovirus at the shelters due to poor hygiene in overcrowded centers—prompting many to camp outdoors. Volunteers from across the region came to the camp and provided services for food, shelter, and sanitation; fire refugees referred to their camp as 'Wallywood.' The camp population swelled to over a thousand people. Butte County has a persistent homeless population of 7,500 people; many reside in Chico, and some campers were revealed as resident homeless people who did not live in the fire zone. On December 1, the firefighter camp facilities at the Butte County Fairgrounds became available, whereupon the Walmart camp was closed and the field fenced off, with the remaining fifty refugees relocated to the firefighters' camp.

Mental health support

Recovery efforts included supporting the mental health of Camp Fire victims, particularly the youth. Some former residents reported survivor guilt, troubling dreams, and symptoms of posttraumatic stress.To ease the stress on fire victims, several people brought therapy dogs from the Butte Humane Society's Animal Assisted Wellness program. Lise Van Susteren summarized the burden these children bear in experiencing climate change, "These kids are at the tip of the spear."

Environmental cleanup

The Camp Fire cleanup became the largest hazardous material cleanup in state history. Due to the time required to clean up a town of nearly 30,000 people and surrounding rural metro region of another 3,000 people, and the infeasible task of developing temporary housing, residents were allowed to take up residence on their burned-out lots, which possibly exposed them to hazardous materials. Winter rains began at the end of the Camp Fire and as a result, hazardous contaminants soaked into the ground and ran into waterways which raised concerns for the drinking water. Another concern was benzene contamination from burning plastic pipes. Paradise tested sections of their water supply and initially "22 out of 24 water systems were tested" and announced as passed. Later, the Paradise Irrigation District issued a notice that the water is contaminated and cannot be used. For water tributaries within the 244-square-mile burn, "a months-long water monitoring program [sampled] surface water at least seven times through spring 2019." While heavy metals and dioxins were concerns, a more pressing public health issue was an intestinal parasite, cryptosporidium, to which bare soil provided greater access to water systems.

FEMA, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services (CalOES) collaborated on developing a site to process fire zone demolition and remediation debris. Of fifty potential sites within thirty miles of Paradise, they identified the 200-acre Koppers Superfund Site in Oroville as a suitable site based on an industrial zoning and a rail spur; the site ultimately was dismissed due to concerns of toxicity. After consideration, all fifty sites were rejected and instead, hazardous waste, such as electronics, car batteries, and asbestos were hauled several hours by trucks directly from the individual cleanup sites to landfills in California and Nevada.

The government procurement for cleanup was broken into several contract packages and put out to public bid to remove, process, and dispose of five million tons of materials at a cost of $3 billion:

ECC Constructors LLC, SF Bay Area, CA: Remove debris from half of Paradise, CA ($359 million).

SPSG Partners, a joint venture of Pacific States Environmental Contractors (in partnership with De Silva Gates Construction, Dublin, CA), Goodfellow Brothers Construction, and Sukut Construction, Santa Ana, CA: Remove debris from half of Paradise, CA ($378 million).

CERES Environmental Services (aka Environmental & Demolition Services Group), Sarasota, FL: Remove debris from areas outside the town of Paradise ($263 million).

Tetra Tech, Pasadena, CA: Test soils for contamination ($250 million). Parent company Tetra Tech EC faked soil tests in Bayview–Hunters Point, San Francisco; two company supervisors were sentenced to prison.

Offhaul contracts went to several local sites, which avoided the need for rail offhaul to out of state sites:

Waste Management; Anderson, CA: Contaminated demolition, such as ash, debris, and soil.

Recology; Wheatland, CA: Contaminated demolition, such as ash, debris, and soil.

Odin Metal; Oroville, CA: Metals, such as burned vehicles and equipment.

Granite's Pacific Heights Recycling; Oroville, CA: Concretes, such as house foundations and driveways.

Franklin Recycling; Paradise, CA: Concretes, such as house foundations and driveways.

Concrete will be shipped out of the county by truck as needed.

The Paradise Fire Safe Council is looking at putting out bids for salvage logging the 443,000 dead trees, which would otherwise be the responsibility of homeowners at a combined cost of $750 million. There are challenges—such as logging must be within a few months or the trees will begin to rot—these challenges are being tested through a pilot program.

Wildland and climate

The Los Angeles Times reported the Camp Fire burned across an area burned to bare dirt by a hot burning wildfire ten years earlier, then salvage logged; fire ecologist Chad Hanson suggested brush piles and young trees left over after the salvage logging provided fast-burning fuels aiding the fire's rapid spread. The Camp Fire was initially fueled by dry grass amid sparse pine and oak woodlands. This drove most of the post-event discussion away from timber management as a future fire-prevention solution.

The fire was largely driven by extreme weather conditions — high winds and low humidity — and spread through fuels parched by more than 200 days without significant precipitation, part of a statewide drought related to climate change.

The Sacramento Bee looked at if residential development is appropriate in the Sierra Nevada wildland-urban zones, quoting a former Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District chief, "There's just some places a subdivision shouldn't be built." Issues include if development can be safe, and if safe, what building codes and emergency response infrastructure would be needed. That discussion pointed to other Sierra Foothill communities similar to Paradise. Cal Fire states "Those kinds of geographic features are present in many foothill towns." Those features include proximity and alignment to river canyons channeling wind-fed flames over foothill communities. Visiting Professor Moritz (UC Santa Barbara) notes "if we were to go back and do the wind mapping, we would find, at some intervals, these areas are prone to these north and northeasterly [strong hot autumn wind] events."

Political

On November 10, then-U.S. president Donald Trump stated that "There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor", including the Camp Fire and the concurrent Woolsey Fire in Southern California. In a tweet, he threatened to end federal assistance unless "gross mismanagement of the forests" is remedied.

Trump elaborated on his claims in an interview with Chris Wallace and during his trip to Paradise, stating "you got to take care of the floors. You know the floors of the forest — very important" and "[Finland] spent a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things and they don't have any problem." Finland's president Sauli Niinistö was baffled by Trump's assertions and denied they talked about raking, leading to an Internet phenomenon of Finnish people sharing photos of themselves sarcastically raking forests with items such as house brooms and vacuum cleaners.

Some fire experts refuted Trump's claims, noting Californians were experiencing unusually dry conditions and abnormally high fire danger. Brian Rice, president of the California Professional Firefighters, described Trump's assertion about state forest management practices as "demeaning" and "dangerously wrong", noting that 60 percent of California forests are directly managed by federal agencies, primarily the United States Forest Service, which had reduced spending on forest management in recent years.

Regardless of the assertions for greater attention to raking by the President at the time, an ongoing discussion in California had revolved around the issue of increasing fire hazard due to a buildup of fuels. In 2016, prior to the Camp Fire, then Governor Jerry Brown warned that this is "the new normal", yet in September 2016, despite unanimous legislative approval, California Governor Brown vetoed Senate Bill 1463, which aimed to reduce the risk of power lines sparking fires in brush-covered and wooded areas. The key provisions in SB1463 were requirements to define in R.15-05-006 what "Enhanced mitigation measures" means and to explain how concerns of regional fire agencies were incorporated into R.15-05-006. The Governor pointed out that the bill duplicated ongoing efforts by Cal-Fire and PG&E in fire mapping power lines with R.15-05-006. Subsequent to the veto, "on January 19, 2018 the CPUC adopted, via Safety and Enforcement Division's (SED) disposition of a Tier 1 Advice Letter, the final CPUC Fire-Threat Map." See the resulting firemap here, the region that would become the Camp Fire ignition point is a Tier 2 (elevated) hazard, which is a large area that burned heavily in 2008, and much of the burn area is Tier 3 (extreme), which had never burned in recorded history.

Following the Camp Fire, the CPUC moved on a new approach to fire prevention with a vote on December 15, 2018, to improve rules governing when utilities should disable power lines to reduce the risk of fires.

US District Court Judge William Alsup ruled May 7, 2019 that the board of PG&E would be required to tour the fire area, at a hearing on the utility's violation of its criminal Federal probation for its negligence in causing the 2010 San Bruno natural gas pipeline failure and subsequent explosion. This violation of Federal probation predated the Camp Fire; after the 2017 Honey Fire, a much smaller but also in Butte County, investigators found that PG&E equipment started that fire. The company settled with prosecutors but did not properly report these events to its Federal probation officer.

Electrical infrastructure hardening

Going forward post-Camp Fire, policymakers are looking at options to harden the California energy distribution infrastructure against wildfires. A key constraint is that California is reliant on a system of centralized electrical generation with distribution to end-users. One proposal to prevent fires is underground distribution similar to modern suburban electrical distribution. In November 2018 and initiated prior to the Camp Fire, PG&E piloted in the North Bay a hardened section of electrical infrastructure.

While buried power lines will reduce the risk of sparking wildfires, however, that solution increases distribution infrastructure cost by 10 times. A suggestion to reduce cost is to harden the sections of high energy lines through high wind areas upwind of residential communities in the wildland–urban interface, in particular, around river canyons pointing to those residential areas. The State Legislature has made efforts towards this strategy, however, while PG&E piloted a segment of hardened infrastructure, PG&E also diverted half the funds intended by the Legislature for this purpose. Hardening utilities with underground placement is common, such as gas and fiber-optic, which are usually buried. Of 175,000 miles of Californian electrical infrastructure, 80,000 miles is fire-prone.

Recovery

The first two building permits were reissued for Paradise after almost five months on March 28, 2019. Local public policymakers want to promote rebuilding with higher standards for fire-resistant construction, upgraded infrastructure, and using the recommended 2009 redesigns for enhanced fire safety, which included expanded road capacity to increase evacuation capacity and to provide better access for emergency equipment. The first Certificate of Occupancy was awarded in July 2019.

The Paradise Seventh-day Adventist church was completely destroyed, as was part of its adjacent academy. Estimates were that at least 600 homes of Adventist Health employees in Paradise had been destroyed. When power was restored to the site, the church began providing free potable water to neighbors. Other places of worship were also destroyed, including Our Savior Lutheran Church, Ridge Presbyterian Church, Paradise Church of Christ, First Assembly of God, Craig Memorial Congregational Church, Paradise Foursquare, New Life Apostolic Church, Paradise Pentecostal Church of God, and Community Church of the Brethren. A Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) meetinghouse and a Center for Spiritual Living were also destroyed.

A community interfaith memorial was held on February 8, 2019, at the Paradise Performing Arts Center. The event was their grand re-opening since the Camp Fire. Over a dozen faith traditions offered a free celebration of life for the lives lost in the Camp Fire. The event was broadcast by Action News Now, NBC attended by 800+ Butte County community members. The event, which promoted healing, unity, and a time for the community to reconnect was sponsored by the Chico Area Interfaith Council. Families received remembrance gifts, and there was prayer, two choirs, piano, and a tribute to each individual who lost their life. The memorial was hosted by Linda Watkins-Bennett and Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Red Grammer performed his song called, "We're Made of Love", which was written for the memorial.

As of late 2023, the population of Paradise was estimated at one third of its pre-fire levels, with an average of 600 new homes being built each year.

Conspiracy theory

A conspiracy theory espoused by U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene claims that the fire was caused by a Jewish Space Laser.

In popular culture

2019 Netflix documentary titled Fire in Paradise

2019 Frontline documentary also titled Fire in Paradise

2020 documentary titled "All Its Name Implies" by filmmaker and Paradise resident Ev Duran

2020 National Geographic documentary titled Rebuilding Paradise

2020 This Old House Season 41 featured a four-episode series about families rebuilding their homes after the fire.

2021 BBC One documentary titled Greta Thunberg: A Year to Change the World with Greta Thunberg speaking to witnesses of the wildfires in Paradise

2021 Bring Your Own Brigade produced and directed by Lucy Walker

In 2021, LA Times sports columnist Bill Plaschke wrote a book entitled Paradise Found: A High School Football Team’s Rise from the Ashes (2021), about how the Paradise High School football team inspired the people of Paradise after the Camp Fire. The book has been optioned for a feature film adaptation to be produced by 101 Studios, who produces Yellowstone.

2025 film The Lost Bus directed by Paul Greengrass is a drama based on the real events.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Fire_(2018)