Butte County has been buffeted by disaster after disaster in recent years. But the Camp fire, California’s deadliest wildfire to date, left deep wounds.
Ria Abernathy was driving home from her son’s place in Oroville on Tuesday evening when an ominous scene unfolded before her. Billowing up from the horizon was a massive plume of neon-orange smoke. The 55-year-old appliance service manager stopped to snap a picture of the Thompson fire, which would burn more than 3,500 acres of dry grass and brush near the Northern California town by the following night and spur an evacuation order for thousands of residents.
She knew that wildfires were a risk, thanks to the recurrent droughts, dense stands of trees and winding canyons. A week or two before the Camp fire, she’d been warned she might have to evacuate from a different fire, so she’d packed her car and was ready to go. About four days before the Camp fire, she’d unloaded it all, thinking she was in the clear. By the time the flames neared her doorstep, she was out of time. “I just dropped everything and said, ‘OK we’ll come back,’” she said.
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