‘I never want to see California again.‘ Heartbreak and loss in Bear Fire’s destruction

Three weeks after freak lightning storms ignited a series of fires throughout California, fierce wind gusts turned one of them into a raging blaze Tuesday night that swept through the Butte County community of Berry Creek and essentially wiped it out.

The Bear Fire, which had been burning as one of three blazes called the North Complex, exploded overnight into a 254,000-acre monster that raced to the shores of Lake Oroville and incinerated almost every structure in the 525-person community of Berry Creek.

» LATEST UPDATES: Oroville may be spared from 250,000-acre blaze

“Berry Creek is gone,” 50-year resident John Sykes said Wednesday after fleeing his home around 4 p.m. Tuesday as the fire raced toward town. “We’re all OK, but we’re traumatized.

“We had enough time to get out OK. We have our car and a pair of clothes and that’s it.”

Sykes said he watched the town burn from about a mile away.

“The school is gone, the fire department’s gone, the bar’s gone, the laundromat’s gone, the general store’s gone,” he said, adding, “I’ll never go back.

“I don’t want to see it. That’s why I’m leaving. I never want to see California again.”

Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea announced that three people died in the fire. Speaking to the media Wednesday night in Chico, he wouldn’t give details but said it pained him to be discussing fatalities from a wildfire less than two years after 85 county residents died in the Camp Fire, the deadliest in California history.

“Butte County is certainly no stranger to dealing with tragedies,” the sheriff said from a makeshift podium at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds. “I certainly hoped after the Camp Fire that I wouldn’t be back up here.”

A spokeswoman for UC Davis Medical Center said four burn victims from the blaze had been admitted to the hospital’s burn unit in critical condition.

Cal Fire said Wednesday night that at least 200 structures had been damaged or destroyed.

The speed of the blaze surprised some and left others wondering if Forest Service firefighters had done enough in the past days to avoid such damage.

Fire had burned for three weeks

Butte County Supervisor Bill Connelly, whose district includes Berry Creek, said he was frustrated that the Forest Service let the fire burn for days when they should have put it out. He said he hasn’t gotten an official report from the sheriff or fire officials, but “there’s probably deaths; a lot of homes burned down.”

“They let this fire smolder for weeks,” he said. “They could have put it out. ... This is procrastination from the U.S. Forest Service, and we’re paying the price.”

A Forest Service official disputed that, saying every possible resource has been poured into California but that, once Tuesday’s wind storm started bringing gusts of up to 45 mph, there was little more that could be done.

“No, there wasn’t anything that we could have done, not the way the conditions were,” said Forest Service fire information officer Bruce Prud’homme, who was brought in from the service’s Atlanta office as part of a national response to California’s firestorms.

“We have committed every resource we’ve had since the fires first began in the middle of August,” he said. “We’ve had a higher demand for people and equipment than there has been a supply of.

“We’ve used every person and everything we’ve had at our disposal.”

Prud’homme said the heavy, gusting winds that whipped through the region Tuesday sent sparks flying up to a mile or more, “and it just streams fire out.”

Coupled with the extreme dry conditions and low moisture, he said, firefighters could expect “ignition from any heat source that hit the ground.”

“It was lined up just right yesterday for this fire to go,” he added.

The blaze forced the evacuation of about 20,000 people, and the town of Oroville was placed under an evacuation warning but the blaze did not burn into the city.

Butte County’s string of disasters

Butte County Supervisor Doug Teeter, who lost his home in the Camp Fire, said there’s a major issue with trying to find evacuees shelter because the COVID-19 pandemic means people can’t stay in traditional shelters.

The Red Cross is trying to find them lodging, but some have pets and livestock, which makes it extra challenging and many don’t want to leave the county.

He noted Butte County has been through a lot the past few years, starting with the Oroville Dam spillway failure in 2017 that forced Oroville to evacuate, followed by the Camp Fire in 2018 that burned the town of Paradise and surrounding communities.

He said that at least the Oroville Dam failure was a one-time deal. The fires, he said, are only going to continue if California doesn’t become much more proactive about managing its forests to prevent wildfires.

Oroville Mayor Chuck Reynolds said his city was spared damage when it appeared to run out of fuel and the wind finally died down, but he had ordered citry staff to remain at home to prepare to evacuate and was at City Hall ready to try to save the city’s computer servers “if the unthinkable happens.”

“The fire turned through the east foothills last night, but it has made it down to the east side of the lake,” Reynolds said in a phone interview from City Hall. “It seems to have run out of fuel at this point, although there are some spots that are still burning. It has not jumped the lake.

“The wind has really died down. In fact, it’s almost non-existent.”

Reynolds said he is hopeful the fire will not pose further threat to Oroville if the winds do not resume, but added that he had heard other communities were hit hard overnight.

Mountain communities leveled

“Berry Creek’s been burned through, Brush Creek, Feather Falls, Forbestown, Clipper Mills all have been burned through.”

Reynolds said he had not heard any reports of burn victims coming to Oroville Hospital, and that most residents of the city stayed in place overnight rather than evacuating. Most of the evacuations he was aware of were in the Kelly Ridge neighborhood, he said.

With freeways blocked off to the east and to the west, many Oroville residents were essentially safe but trapped, said Wagon Wheel Market deli manager Rachel Johnston.

The roadside general store had sold lots of ready-made meals such as sandwiches and rotisserie chickens to people living nearby as well as those who evacuated to Gold Country Casino Resort, where the dining rooms were closed due to COVID-19.

Trauma isn’t new here, Johnston said.

A perennial Cal Fire sign outside warns “wildfire is coming. Is your home ready?” The town notably made national news three years ago with a frantic Sunday night evacuation when officials feared the Oroville Dam spillway failure might led to a dam failure.

“Unfortunately, people in this area are kind of use to (evacuating),” Johnston said. “They’re a little more tired, a little more quiet than normal. But in Butte County, we’ve gotten used to it.”

Where the fire’s burning now

Fire crews spent Wednesday working to keep the fire out of the rural but populated Kelly Ridge area on the northeast flank of the city of Oroville.

The fast-moving fire burned around that edge of Lake Oroville during the night, forcing evacuations of a section of Oroville. But as of Wednesday afternoon, the fire was no longer making the progress it had the day before in high winds.

“The weather is not as dynamic today, so the fire is not moving like it was yesterday,” Cal Fire spokesman Rick Carhart said. “We are making sure to keep the fire out of the Kelly Ridge area. That has been our target today.”

But Berry Creek, a secluded rural area of several hundred people, did not fare as well.

The town was in ashen ruins Wednesday, hours after a midnight firestorm and frantic evacuation that some residents said began at 3 p.m.

“I’ve only seen three homes left standing,” Sacramento Bee photographer Jason Pierce said Wednesday afternoon, reporting from the hill town. “Dozens of houses and businesses are destroyed. Every house is just dust.”

On Wednesday afternoon, the area was desolate, and blanketed in heavy smoke. A fire crew was in town working on remaining spot fires, and Butte Sheriff’s deputies were patrolling the area.

Vanessa Reeves-Farry fled Berry Creek late Tuesday afternoon, with ash falling from a bright orange sky. By Wednesday afternoon, she was bracing herself for the fact that her home of the past 15 years was likely gone.

“Pretty much, from what I’ve heard, our whole town or 90% of our town” was destroyed, she said in a phone interview.

Reeves-Farry lamented the damage done to the community.

“It was great. Mountain living,” she said. “Your don’t have a lot of people bugging you.”

Another evacuee, David Tonick, didn’t have to be told twice to leave. A former volunteer fire chief, he packed up and went to a friend’s house after the evacuation order arrived.

He recalled that as he was leaving Tuesday afternoon, “the sky was kind of turning red. I’ve never seen the sky turn red before.”

This story was originally published September 9, 2020 at 4:48 PM with the headline "‘I never want to see California again.‘ Heartbreak and loss in Bear Fire’s destruction."