Three California towns transformed by wildfire:
one rebuilding, one in ruins,
one threatened

Yalonda M. James/The Chronicle
GREENVILLE, Plumas County — Almost nothing recognizable remains of the three-bedroom house where Carey Russell once played with his two young children in this Sierra Nevada town.

The cinder block foundation is heaped with ash and twisted metal, its rectangular frame only a suggestion of the structure it once supported. The backyard, where Russell barbecued ribs and tri-tip, is a sea of rubble.

Russell had cherished living in his neighborhood right along Highway 89, which becomes Crescent Street as it passes through the tiny town of Greenville. His younger son and daughter, 7 and 9, lived down the street with their mother, his ex-wife. Their front doors were 150 steps apart.

Fighting back tears as he returned recently to Crescent Street for the first time since the behemoth Dixie Fire barreled through in August, Russell, 49, kicked over ashen piles in the ruins. He was hoping to find the American flag that flew over the Pentagon when he retired from the Navy in 2012, after more than 20 years of service. But after a few tense minutes, he gave up the search.

Despite living in the flame-prone Sierra for years, despite seeing worsening blazes flatten other Sierra communities, Russell thought his town could withstand the threat of wildfires.

“You always want to think it could never happen to you,” he said.
Clockwise from top left: The remains of the Greenville Library, which was destroyed in the Dixie Fire in August. Carey Russell, also pictured at the top of this story, who lost his Greenville home to the fire, returns to his burned-out lot for the first time on Sept. 29. The remains of vehicles destroyed when the Dixie Fire roared through town in August. Yalonda M. James/The Chronicle
Even as the community looks toward rebuilding and recovery, Russell isn’t sure if he can bear living in Greenville anymore.

And he’s not alone.

As the Dixie Fire calmed down, The Chronicle visited Greenville and two other Sierra towns to witness how wildfires have changed life on the front lines of California’s evolving climate crisis. One town is rebuilding from a historic fire. One was just decimated. And the third has escaped catastrophe — at least for now.

Fueled by more than a century of poor forest management and the more recent effects of climate change, the big blazes of recent years are making life difficult even for those whose homes haven’t burned.
Smoke polluted the Sierra skies for extended periods this summer and last. Insurance for many homeowners has become harder to find and more expensive to retain. In some areas, the housing market is tighter and costlier than it was just a few years ago.

Communities throughout the Sierra fire zones are facing difficult decisions: Should they improve evacuation routes? Can they expedite forest thinning? How do they keep their economies healthy amid the frequent threats?
Few places have been as hard hit as a swath of California’s mountainous northeast region where wildfires have set records multiple times in recent years.

The 2018 Camp Fire was the state’s deadliest, killing 85 people, and most destructive, burning down about 18,800 buildings and nearly wiping Paradise off the map. The Dixie Fire, which started not far from the Camp Fire’s origin point, is now the second-largest in modern state history and 14th-most destructive. Last year’s North Complex, which leveled the town of Berry Creek southeast of Paradise, was the fifth-deadliest, fifth-most-destructive and seventh-largest wildfire.

Statistics, though, don’t tell the full story. Thousands of people in places like Paradise, Greenville and the Plumas County town of Quincy are struggling, making hard choices about whether to attempt to forge a more resilient community or abandon the fire zone altogether.

PARADISE: A town recovering
A sign outside Paradise earlier this month — it’s one indicator that a town practically wiped off the map by the 2018 Camp Fire, is showing new life. Yalonda M. James/The Chronicle
Jason Buzzard’s white-and-black house on the east side of Paradise, his hometown, looks as new as it is. The unblemished structure, completed last year, is surrounded by a yard with sparse greenery. Except for one corner, where he’s built an oasis of lush trees, grass for his three dogs to play on and even a small pavilion with a hammock, the perfect spot to read a book on a warm summer afternoon.

Buzzard, 37, obtained the first permit to rebuild a home in Paradise after the town was destroyed by the Camp Fire. More than two years later, few of his neighbors have followed him. Standing in front of his porch around sunset late last month, Buzzard pointed at several properties around him.

Before the fire, there was a house. There was another one. And another.
Now, they’re mostly patches of dirt, with a few remaining trees.
Still, to Buzzard, it’s home.

“I don’t feel the need to move,” he said. “We’re young enough to where we can wait for the town to rebuild.”

Buzzard and his family are living in a community that’s much smaller than it was before the Camp Fire, which destroyed about 14,000 homes, most of them in Paradise. About 1,300 single- and multi-family homes have been rebuilt and about 2,300 more are in the pipeline. The town’s mayor estimates its population at about 6,200 — nowhere near the 27,000 people who lived there previously.

Buzzard is a real estate agent who’s seen the fire upend the local housing market. The average selling price of a house in Paradise has shot up more than 35% since the fire, as demand far outstrips supply, according to data he pulled.
Jason Buzzard, a real estate agent, obtained the first permit to rebuild a home in Paradise after the town was destroyed by the Camp Fire in 2018. His home (right) is one of very few in his neighborhood that have been built since then. “I don’t feel the need to move,” he said. “We’re young enough to where we can wait for the town to rebuild.” Yalonda M. James/The Chronicle
Housing costs have soared even as insuring them has become increasingly difficult. Mayor Steve Crowder rebuilt his Paradise home about a year and a half ago, and he said he used to pay about $900 per year for insurance. Now he pays $1,500.

While Paradise rebuilds, the existential threat of extreme wildfires persists. Last year, the town was placed under an evacuation warning because of the nearby North Complex fire. This year, the Dixie Fire sent smoke over Paradise for weeks.

One of Buzzard’s clients, a woman who was supposed to relocate to town a few months ago, backed out while in escrow. She was spooked by the Dixie Fire’s long burn. He’s heard of others who sold their Paradise houses because they didn’t want to deal with smoke anymore.

While he knows more people may make similar decisions — they can’t bear the idea of living in a place frequently imperiled by flames or covered by smoke — Buzzard can’t conceive of walking away from the town where he and his daughter were born and where his wife grew up.

Besides, he reasons, climate change is escalating extreme weather threats just about everywhere.

“Where else am I gonna go?” he said.

Around town, neighborhoods once filled with houses surrounded by ponderosa pines and other vegetation are now more open, with far fewer trees and many empty lots. But new dwellings punctuate the landscape, and more are being built.

The town’s infrastructure is changing, too. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. — which caused the Camp Fire and pleaded guilty to 84 felony counts of involuntary manslaughter — is burying power lines.

The town is also installing a sewer system on some of its main roads to replace septic systems that constrained business growth. Several businesses that survived the fire, like Starbucks, are still up and running. Tractor Supply Co. opened a new location in Paradise. Grocery Outlet, which burned down, reopened in a former CVS site.

Most critically, town residents and officials say they’re all paying laser-sharp attention to wildfire issues. They’re removing burned trees at risk of falling on new structures. They’re trying to maintain more defensible space to give homes their best shot at withstanding the next fire.

“We want to be known as a fire-safe town,” Crowder said. “We don’t want to be known as the town that burned down.”

GREENVILLE: A town destroyed
A mural painted by Shane Grammer on a wall of the Pioneer Bar in Greenville. It was destroyed by the Dixie Fire in August. Yalonda M. James/The Chronicle
The house had been in Karen Morcomb’s family since 1912, when it was purchased by her great-great-grandfather, the gold miner Duncan McIntyre. He acquired three homes as Christmas presents for his daughters-in-law. Morcomb’s house on Main Street in Greenville, purchased with a $10 gold coin, was one of them.

It was a stately home, with six bedrooms and three bathrooms on 3 acres. Morcomb’s great-grandfather eventually added nine outbuildings, several of them part of his electric company, which PG&E bought decades ago.

It’s all gone now.

Morcomb, 62, inherited the home when her grandmother died in 2008. She had been living there for two years when the Dixie Fire raced into town Aug. 4, destroying most of the buildings in Greenville.

Walking around her driveway on a recent afternoon, Morcomb didn’t hesitate on whether she would rebuild.

“I’m 100% certain I will rebuild,” she said. “What I’m gonna rebuild, I don’t know. I don’t need nine outbuildings anymore.”

Morcomb’s family is rooted in Greenville. Her daughter lived down the street, and two of her cousins were nearby, too. All of them lost their homes in the Dixie Fire.
Clockwise from top left: Late last month Karen Morcomb, 62, looks at an item her sister-in-law found on her property after the Dixie Fire destroyed large parts of Greenville. At right, she shows another item. The site of Morcomb’s old home, which had been in her family since 1912, when it was purchased by her great-great-grandfather, a gold miner. Yalonda M. James/The Chronicle
Greenville was among Plumas County’s poorest communities, said Margaret Garcia, a local fiction writer and reporter for the Plumas News website. Almost everyone who lived there worked somewhere else. Or they were retired.

Garcia’s mother lived just outside Greenville, and while her home survived the Dixie Fire, she couldn’t bear being evacuated for several weeks. So Garcia’s mom has already relocated — to Missouri. She’s renting her house to people who lost their own in the fire.

Even though Plumas County is one of California’s most affordable areas, the region was already feeling squeezed by the state’s notorious housing crunch before the Dixie Fire. Affordable homes were getting harder to find, and when they did become available, they were scooped up almost immediately. Houses that used to sell in the $200,000 range a few years ago now go for closer to $350,000 or more.

“Before the fire, the county was in the middle of a housing crisis,” Garcia said. “The fire just exacerbated it.”

Those who choose to rebuild will confront problems common in Northern California communities devastated by wildfires. Once debris is cleared, residents could face steep construction and home insurance costs. Many people may end up on the California Fair Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort.

The Dixie Fire affected Garcia directly, incinerating the office she shared with another local writer in a historic central Greenville building. She and her husband had also recently purchased 8 acres on the edge of town and were preparing to move their tiny home to the land when the Dixie Fire burned everything on it.
Potential wildfire fuel (left) rests on the ground near the homes of Margaret Garcia’s mother’s home outside Greenville in late September. The home survived when the Dixie Fire roared through town in August and is now being used to shelter another family. Garcia’s mother moved to Missouri. Garcia (right) lost her office in downtown Greenville during the fire. Yalonda M. James/The Chronicle
When the fire torched her property, Garcia thought she would sell the land. But surveying it after the fire, she isn’t so sure anymore.

“I have always thought Greenville had a lot of potential,” Garcia said. “I used to call it the poor man’s Calistoga.”

She has long believed that the town, with its historic buildings dating back to the Gold Rush and nearby hot springs, had untapped potential as a tourist destination.

Garcia is now leaning toward staying on her property, continuing to transform it into her ideal home, with enough space to host writers’ retreats. But she could change her mind.

For now, she’s living in her tiny home parked at her mother’s former house outside Greenville. She spends her days working in nearby Quincy, which has escaped destruction by major wildfires two years in a row.

Some local leaders fear that town’s luck may not last much longer.

QUINCY: A town threatened
The letter Q atop a hill in Quincy. The landmark that stands above the town’s high school was repainted to include orange, a team color of the high school in nearby Greenville, whose displaced students are now studying in Quincy. Yalonda M. James/The Chronicle
On a hillside overlooking Quincy’s high school on the east side of town is a large painted “Q.” It’s been there for many years, a symbol of local pride for the school’s students and the nearly 2,000 people who live in Quincy. But the Dixie Fire changed the landmark letter.

The Q is now painted orange and red, with a white stripe in between. Red is the color of Quincy’s local high school. Orange is for Greenville’s high school, in honor of students displaced by the fire who now go to school in Quincy.

It’s just one of many ways Quincy has been visibly affected by recent wildfires, even though the town remains intact.

Other signs include the firefighter camp set up just outside town at the Plumas County Fairgrounds. There was also the seemingly relentless smoke the past two years. And there were the flames from both the North Complex and Dixie fires, their orange glow visible from Quincy at times.

Greg Hagwood, Quincy’s county supervisor and the former Plumas County sheriff, is acutely aware of how close to destruction his longtime home has come. Standing on his father’s red painted patio on a recent blue-sky day, Hagwood could point to the spot on the horizon where the Dixie Fire had burned toward town.
Clockwise from top left: Trees scorched in last year’s North Complex fire seen from La Porte Road in Quincy. Eric Coulter (right), a public information officer with the federal Bureau of Land Management, inspects soil in the Plumas National Forest, where the Dixie Fire burned. John Sheehan, a trustee with Feather River College and retired executive director of Plumas Corp., drives to Bucks Lake Marina in Quincy on Sept. 30. Sheehan has lived in town since 1978. “If we're going to continue to live here, we’ve got to work across all the jurisdictions,” he said, “work on making the forests more fire resilient so they can handle these fires."
Yalonda M. James/The Chronicle
Then he turned around and pointed in the other direction. That’s where, on the other side of a hill, the North Complex had burned toward his dad’s house.

“Everything around Quincy has burned,” Hagwood said on an earlier phone call. “I can look out of my backyard and see the burned trees on the crest of the hill behind my house. It’s gotten very close to burning this town down three out of the last five years. It’s really, really frightening.”

Quincy, like Greenville, started as a Gold Rush town, built on land inhabited by the Maidu tribe. It has a quaint downtown sprinkled with coffee shops, an old-fashioned movie theater and the Plumas County Museum. There are only two stoplights in the area.

Even before the Dixie Fire displaced most of Greenville’s residents, Quincy’s housing market was stressed. Rentals were “nearly impossible to find,” Hagwood said, and housing costs have risen substantially.

Insurance companies have made life more difficult for some Quincy residents, too. Hagwood’s parents, who have lived in Quincy for decades, received two insurance cancellation notices in two years, though the second was nullified by a state moratorium on such practices.

“It has the potential to really create an inventory of houses that people can’t afford to insure,” Hagwood said.

Hagwood is also concerned about the economic pain the rainy season will bring. The Dixie Fire burned intensely along Highways 70 and 89, the two main routes connecting Quincy to the rest of California.
Quincy resident Joe Hagwood, 81, was ready to evacuate all summer. He had removed family photos, ready to put them in the car if he had to flee. Though the town is safe for now, he and his family are still trying to process what happened to nearby Greenville, virtually destroyed by the Dixie Fire. “The people here could not imagine Greenville being allowed to burn,” he said. Yalonda M. James/The Chronicle
The atmospheric river that soaked much of Northern California over the weekend triggered a slide that blocked Highway 70 in the Feather River Canyon about 24 miles west of Quincy. It’s not clear when the road will fully reopen.

Hagwood’s 81-year old father, Joe, was ready to evacuate all summer. Inside his house, lonely hooks on the walls indicated where Joe had removed family photos, ready to put them in the car if he had to flee.

Though the town is safe for now, the family, like many others in Quincy, is still trying to process what happened to nearby Greenville.

“The people here could not imagine Greenville being allowed to burn,” Joe Hagwood said.

Now officials are concerned Quincy might one day follow in Greenville’s footsteps.

“Quincy was pretty lucky this year, to be frank,” said Ryan Bauer, forest fuels and prescribed fire program manager for the Plumas National Forest. “The same thing could have happened in Quincy if the fire moved into the wrong place.”

DECISION: Stay or go?
Navy veteran Carey Russell returns to his burned-out lot in Greenville for the first time on Sept. 29. He had lived in the house only since April 2019 and doesn’t think he can return to live there again.
Yalonda M. James/The Chronicle
Back in Greenville, Russell, the Navy veteran who lost his home on Crescent Street, grappled with what he would do next.

He had lived in his house only since April 2019. Two months after he moved in, he lost his oldest son, who passed away at age 28 from a rare kidney disease he’d had since he was a teenager.

Russell never finished unpacking his boxes. But things were getting better before the Dixie Fire swept through town.

“I was just starting to get through the grief process and feel like I could reconnect and stay here,” Russell said.

The day he came back to Crescent Street for the first time after the fire, Russell pulled over for a while in a nearby town to think about what his future in Greenville would look like if he chose to stay.

He decided that his goal in returning to town was “to get some semblance of, do I still feel connected?”

Standing before the ruins of his house on a sunny September afternoon, Russell’s answer was clear.

“I don’t,” he said. “I don’t think I can reconnect.”

His younger son and daughter are in Susanville with their mother.

Russell thinks he’ll probably end up in Reno, about an hour and a half’s drive away, so he can still see his children often. As much as he loved Greenville, the town he knew and loved is effectively gone now.

It’s time, for him at least, to move on.
Santa Clara County FireSafe Council
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