Losing Paradise: The “New Normal” of California Wildfires
On the morning of November 8, 2018, Don Peck awoke to the sound of bombs going off.
“It was boom, boom, boom,” recalls the retired jeweler, who had slept in late after a bout of insomnia the night before. Now, as the 70-year-old struggled to gain full consciousness, he realized it was propane tanks, not bombs, he heard. His town, Paradise, was on fire.
Peck knew that he had probably lost everything—his home, his belongings, his cat.