Longform Essay | Environment
A Natural Reckoning: California’s Years of Fire
by Clara Dudley
Prescribed burn at Clear Creek, Central California Field Office (June 2019)
Photo by Monte Kawahara, BLM (public domain)
This essay is in progress and is forthcoming. Please check back later!
…
At around 7am on the morning of November 8, 2018, Dan Hawk woke up to a phone call from his friend who was driving her daughter to school in rural Butte County, an area of northern California about 165 miles northeast of San Francisco.
“Are you okay? We’re looking up towards your house and see a lot of smoke clouds.”
Dan’s partner Cici, over eight months pregnant, had a bad feeling the night before, and she hadn’t slept. With a high fire warning and a notice issued by the utility company Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) that they’d be intermittently turning off electricity to reduce the fire risk, her sense of unrest was palpable. There had been no rain for months. She had packed some personal belongings in the house they had set up for their expected baby, due only weeks later.