Fire in Paradise: An American Tragedy

Fire in Paradise: An American Tragedy PDF Author: Dani Anguiano
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324005157
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 170

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Book Description
The harrowing story of the most destructive American wildfire in a century. On November 8, 2018, the ferocious Camp Fire razed nearly every home in Paradise, California, and killed at least 85 people. Journalists Alastair Gee and Dani Anguiano reported on Paradise from the day the fire began and conducted hundreds of in-depth interviews with residents, firefighters and police, and scientific experts. Fire in Paradise is their dramatic narrative of the disaster and an unforgettable story of an American town at the forefront of the climate emergency.

Paradise

Paradise PDF Author: Lizzie Johnson
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
ISBN: 0593136381
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 433

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Book Description
"The definitive firsthand account of California's Camp Fire-the nation's deadliest wildfire in a century-and a riveting examination of what went wrong and how to avert future tragedies as the climate crisis unfolds ... A cautionary tale for a new era of megafires, Paradise is the gripping story of a town wiped off the map and the determination of its people to rise again"--

California Burning

California Burning PDF Author: Katherine Blunt
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593330668
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
A revelatory, urgent narrative with national implications, exploring the decline of California’s largest utility company that led to countless wildfires — including the one that destroyed the town of Paradise – and the human cost of infrastructure failure Pacific Gas and Electric was a legacy company built by innovators and visionaries, establishing California as a desirable home and economic powerhouse. In California Burning, Wall Street Journal reporter and Pulitzer finalist Katherine Blunt examines how that legacy fell apart—unraveling a long history of deadly failures in which Pacific Gas and Electric endangered millions of Northern Californians, through criminal neglect of its infrastructure. As PG&E prioritized profits and politics, power lines went unchecked—until a rusted hook purchased for 56 cents in 1921 split in two, sparking the deadliest wildfire in California history. Beginning with PG&E’s public reckoning after the Paradise fire, Blunt chronicles the evolution of PG&E’s shareholder base, from innovators who built some of California's first long-distance power lines to aggressive investors keen on reaping dividends. Following key players through pivotal decisions and legal battles, California Burning reveals the forces that shaped the plight of PG&E: deregulation and market-gaming led by Enron Corp., an unyielding push for renewable energy, and a swift increase in wildfire risk throughout the West, while regulators and lawmakers pushed their own agendas. California Burning is a deeply reported, character-driven narrative, the story of a disaster expanding into a much bigger exploration of accountability. It’s an American tragedy that serves as a cautionary tale for utilities across the nation—especially as climate change makes aging infrastructure more vulnerable, with potentially fatal consequences.

Paradise Found

Paradise Found PDF Author: Bill Plaschke
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 006301453X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
"Friday Night Lights meets Unbroken." —Tony Reali | "One of the most profound stories you will ever read." —Ian O'Connor | "Plaschke delivers a masterpiece." —Jeff Pearlman From L.A. Times columnist and ESPN Around the Horn panelist Bill Plaschke, a story of tragedy, triumph, and the remarkable power of high school football in one small California town On November 8, 2018, the Camp Fire ravaged the town of Paradise, California. The fire, which burned up to 80 acres per minute, killed 86 people, and nearly every building and home in the town was reduced to ashes. In a single day, Paradise, a proud working-class town in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas, saw its population fall from 25,000 to 2,000. The Paradise High football team had long been the town’s source of joy and inspiration. But in the wake of the fire, their season was abruptly cancelled on the eve of the playoffs. Their championship hopes were gone. Their program’s survival seemed doubtful—it wasn’t even clear whether Paradise High would continue to exist. Coach Rick Prinz had planned to retire that year after guiding the Paradise High Bobcats for two decades. But after the fire forever altered his beloved town, he realized he couldn’t walk away. What ensued was the challenge of a lifetime. Of the 104 football players at Paradise, 95 had lost their homes. His varsity squad, which had stood 76 strong the previous season, was down to 22. Most of those who remained were homeless, sleep-deprived, lost. On the first day of spring practice, on a debris-ridden patch of grass at nearby Chico Airport, Prinz’s team didn’t even have a football. It was the humble beginning to a memorable journey. Bill Plaschke, longtime columnist for the Los Angeles Times, followed the Paradise Bobcats throughout a most remarkable season. In this gripping, deeply-reported story of tragedy and resilience, Plaschke reveals the unique power of sports to unite, to inspire, and to heal. As the Paradise players fought to rebuild their broken lives, they found strength in the support of their teammates—and as football returned to Paradise, so, too, did the spirit of the town itself.

Fire Underground

Fire Underground PDF Author: David Dekok
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0762758244
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
How a modern-day mine disaster has turned a Pennsylvania community into a ghost town * For much of its history, Centralia, Pennsylvania, had a population of around 2,000. By 1981, this had dwindled to just over 1,000—not unusual for a onetime mining town. But as of 2007, Centralia had the unwelcome distinction of being the state’s tiniest municipality, with a population of nine. The reason: an underground fire that began in 1962 has decimated the town with smoke and toxic gases, and has since made history. Fire Underground is the completely updated classic account of the fire that has been raging under Centralia for decades. David DeKok tells the story of how the fire actually began and how government officials failed to take effective action. By 1981 the fire was spewing deadly gases into homes. A twelve-year-old boy dropped into a steaming hole as a congressman toured nearby. DeKok describes how the people of Centralia banded together to finally win relocation funds—and he reveals what has happened to the few remaining residents as the fiftieth anniversary of the fire’s beginning nears.

Fire Along the Sky

Fire Along the Sky PDF Author: Sara Donati
Publisher: Bantam
ISBN: 0553900641
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 719

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Book Description
With epic sweep and breathtaking adventure, Sara Donati’s bestselling saga of an Early American family’s struggle for survival in the Northeast wilderness continues with the story of an indomitable woman and an unforgettable journey of redemption across a young nation threatened by the flames of war. The year is 1812 and Hannah Bonner has returned to her family’s mountain cabin in Paradise. But Nathaniel and Elizabeth Bonner can see that Hannah is not the same woman as when she left. For their daughter has come home without her husband and without her son…and with a story of loss and tragedy that she can’t bear to tell. Yet as Hannah resumes her duties as a gifted healer among the sick and needy, she finds that she is also slowly healing herself. Little does she realize that she is about to be called away to face her greatest challenge ever. As autumn approaches, news of the latest conflict with Britain finds the young men of Paradise—including eighteen-year-old Daniel Bonner—eager to take up arms. Against their better judgment, Nathaniel and Elizabeth must let him go, just as they must let his twin sister Lily, a stubborn beauty, pursue her independence in Montreal. But on the eve of the War of 1812, an unexpected guest arrives from Scotland: It is the Bonners’ distant cousin, the newly widowed Jennet Scott of Carryckcastle. Far from home, Lily and Jennet will each learn the price of pursuing their dreams and the possibility of true love. But it’s Hannah herself who must risk everything once more—this time to save Daniel, who’s been taken prisoner by the British. As the distant thunder of war threatens Paradise, Hannah may learn to live—and maybe love—again in one final act of courage, duty, and sacrifice. A gifted writer, a master storyteller, and a first-rate historian, Sara Donati has written a powerful, poignant, and movingly romantic novel that chronicles the lives and adventures of a family as compelling and unforgettable as any in American fiction.

The Esperanza Fire

The Esperanza Fire PDF Author: John N. MacLean
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 161902148X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
When a jury returns to a packed courtroom to announce its verdict in a capital murder case every noise, even a scraped chair or an opening door, resonates like a high–tension cable snap. Spectators stop rustling in their seats; prosecution and defense lawyers and the accused stiffen into attitudes of wariness; and the judge looks on owlishly. In that atmosphere of heightened expectation the jury entered a Riverside County Superior Court room in southern California to render a decision in the trial of Raymond Oyler, charged with murder for setting the Esperanza Fire of 2006, which killed a five–man Forest Service engine crew sent to fight the blaze. Today, wildland fire is everybody's business, from the White House to the fireground. Wildfires have grown bigger, more intense, more destructive—and more expensive. Federal taxpayers, for example, footed most of the $16 million bill for fighting the Esperanza Fire. But the highest cost was the lives of the five–man crew of Engine 57, the first wildland engine crew ever to be wiped out by flames. They were caught in an "area ignition," which in seconds covered three–quarters of a mile and swept the house they were defending on a dry ridge face, where human dwellings chew into previously wild and still unforgiving territory. John Maclean, award–winning author of three previous books on wildfire disasters, spent more than five years researching the Esperanza Fire and covering the trial of Raymond Oyler. Maclean offers an insider's second–by–second account of the fire and the capture and prosecution of Oyler, the first person ever to be found guilty of murder for setting a wildland fire.

A Paradise Built in Hell

A Paradise Built in Hell PDF Author: Rebecca Solnit
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101459018
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
The author of Men Explain Things to Me explores the moments of altruism and generosity that arise in the aftermath of disaster Why is it that in the aftermath of a disaster? whether manmade or natural?people suddenly become altruistic, resourceful, and brave? What makes the newfound communities and purpose many find in the ruins and crises after disaster so joyous? And what does this joy reveal about ordinarily unmet social desires and possibilities? In A Paradise Built in Hell, award-winning author Rebecca Solnit explores these phenomena, looking at major calamities from the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco through the 1917 explosion that tore up Halifax, Nova Scotia, the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, 9/11, and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. She examines how disaster throws people into a temporary utopia of changed states of mind and social possibilities, as well as looking at the cost of the widespread myths and rarer real cases of social deterioration during crisis. This is a timely and important book from an acclaimed author whose work consistently locates unseen patterns and meanings in broad cultural histories.

Fire on the Mountain

Fire on the Mountain PDF Author: Dale A. Johnson
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1435739922
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
Biography of experiences by an American living in Southeast Turkey and Northern Iraq during and after the first Gulf War.

The Day the Earth Caved In

The Day the Earth Caved In PDF Author: Joan Quigley
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1588366154
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
The Day the Earth Caved In is an unprecedented and riveting account of the nation’s worst mine fire, beginning on Valentine’s Day, 1981, when twelve-year-old Todd Domboski plunged through the earth in his grandmother’s backyard in Centralia, Pennsylvania. In astonishing detail, award-winning journalist Joan Quigley, the granddaughter of Centralia miners, ushers readers into the dramatic world of the underground blaze——from the media circus and back-room deal-making spawned in the wake of Todd’s sudden disappearance, to the inner lives of every day Centralians who fought a government that wouldn’t listen. Drawing on interviews with key participants and exclusive new research, Quigley paints unforgettable portraits of Centralia and its residents, from Tom Larkin, the short-order cook and ex-hippie who rallied the activists, to Helen Womer, a bank teller who galvanized the opposition, denying the fire’s existence even as toxic fumes invaded her home. Here, too, we see the failures of major political and government figures, from Centralia’s congressman, “Dapper” Dan Flood, a former actor who later resigned in the wake of corruption allegations, to James Watt, a former lawyer-lobbyist for the mining industry, who became President Reagan’s controversial interior secretary. Like Jonathan Harr’s A Civil Action, The Day the Earth Caved In is a seminal investigation of individual rights, corporate privilege, and governmental indifference to the powerless. Exposing facts in prose that reads like fiction, Quigley shows us what happens to a small community when disaster strikes, and what it means to call someplace home. Praise for The Day the Earth Caved In: "Her scene-by-scene narrative reads like fiction but inspires outrage in the muckraking tradition of Lincoln Steffens and Rachel Carson.” —The New York Times "[A]s a piece of explanatory journalism, The Day The Earth Caved In shines." —Washington Post Book World “It is quite a story.” —The Wall Street Journal “First rate research and journalism combing to tell a sad, often infuriating tale.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred) “ Quigley’s riveting account of the nation’s most devastating mine fire will change the way you think about so-called natural disasters, and the emotions we attach to the places we call home. This is an extraordinary book.” — Sean Wilentz, author of The Rise of American Democracy “Quigley’s tale is a real-life epic of brutally indifferent government, greedy corporations and the unlikely heroes who fight for their basic human rights. It's all here; made in America. You'll feel enraged to know the truth of what happened in our mountains and proud of your fellow Americans who took on Goliath." — John Passacantando, Executive Director, Greenpeace USA “If you can imagine a book that combines the gritty dignity of How Green Was My Valley with the muckraking of Silent Spring, then you have some sense of this deeply affecting work.” — Samuel G. Freedman, author of Upon This Rock “Joan Quigley, the granddaughter of coal miners, has combined meticulous reporting and personal passion to bring us this important book — one that illuminates an underground blaze that many corporate and government officials sought to smother and conceal.” — Gay Talese, author of A Writer’s Life