The Campfire, my Experiences and What it’s like There now.

Jetti Stout, Staff Writer

You probably have heard about the two fires called, TheWoolsey Fire and Camp Fire which both started on November 8, 2018, and were fully contained on November 22 (Wolsey), and 25 (Camp Fire), 2018. You probably heard more about the one in Los Angeles though, The Woolsey fire. But how much did you hear about the other fire, the Camp Fire? Which started near Paradise and spread from there. I spoke to a victim of the Camp Fire, who was unharmed, and somebody who worked at a shelter that housed animals that were either in the fire or put there by their owners for a little while. The Camp Fire had a death total of 88 people. The whole town of Paradise was burnt to the ground, bodies were so burnt they could not be identified, and 42 people still cannot be identified, but are confirmed dead.

 

The campfire was so much worse than the Woolsey Fire, but people only talked about the Woolsey fire and left the Camp Fire in the shadows. This was probably because the Woolsey fire affected not only normal people but celebrities as well, even though very few of them actually lost their homes.

I actually know two survivors of the Camp Fire, Michael Garcia, and his mother. Michael Garcia said that “[I] complete[ly] loss my house and everything [that was left inside],” but he made it out unharmed with their two cats before the fire reached them. Once they were safe and pretty far from the fire, Garcia said that he and his mom “stayed in Chico at a friend’s neighbor’s house for five days.” After staying there, he went to Grass Valley to stay in a hotel and was there for five weeks. He finally settled down in his new apartment in Chico where he will be staying for one year.

I myself went up to Chico and Oroville, California, which was very close to the fire, to help my mom’s cousin, Lisa Pound, at an animal shelter which was keeping animals under a roof with food and water while their owners were either somewhere safe, or as hard as it is to say, missing, or dead.

Pound said that she got an emergency deployment text around 8:15 am to get animals and bring them to a safe place since she was already with an animal rescue volunteer program when the Camp Fire was starting up. In total, she said there were 500-800 animals at the Oroville Animal Shelter

One owner who was reacquainted with his smiling puppy!- who, was staying at the Oroville animal shelter. They were reacquainted after they were both safe from the fire.
Taken by unknown, but was received from Lisa Pound.al Shelter.

 

Before my mom and I came to help out Pound said, “The first few days were tough [at the shelter] because everyone was so panicked and crying and some [people] were driving in with cars that had front ends melted off and side mirrors melted off, they were scared to leave their animals, but [they] had no choice.” Pound also mentioned, “The following week or two were hard because rescue personnel were bringing in animals they found and many were burned, some, pretty bad.”

Pound worked like crazy at the shelter since helping animals is one of her passions she even says, “My legs hurt so badly that it would wake me up at night [from] walking dogs, cleaning dogs’ crates and even chickens and ducks’ [crates as well].” Besides struggling with pains in the night she was also dealing with all the thoughts of all the people dying. Problems at the shelter also had her struggling with untrained volunteers which, as she said, lead to a big disaster.

At first, my mom and I really couldn’t do much until Lisa Pound had us help out in one of the dog towers, which was her main area. Inside, the dogs were in cages, but since there were so many dogs and not much space they didn’t really have much choice but to keep them in cages. There weren’t only dogs at the shelter though, there were also cats, a pet bird, ducks, lots of chickens, and rabbits. When my mom and I first arrived all of a sudden the tall, dry, grass right next to the shelter caught fire and people were more panicked, getting ready to relocate all the animals, if they even could, but the fire was put out very fast and it had started because of to homeless people making a fire in the grass.

Lisa Pound with one of the dogs she rescued and fostered at her home.
Taken by unknown.