How Did Kamala Harris Do in the Democratic Debate? – The New York Times

Tamra Fisher smelled smoke that morning. But that wasn’t so uncommon in Paradise. Small wildfires erupted in the canyons on either side of town every year.

“I’ve been here so long, it didn’t even faze me,” Ms. Fisher said, as she recalled the day the deadliest fire in California’s history ripped through her town.

Ms. Fisher would soon become one of thousands of people who were trapped in their cars trying to escape the area, each sealed in his or her own saga of agony, terror, courage or despair. She and others kept trying to scurry away from the fire only to discover that the blaze was ahead of them, behind them, alongside them, all around.

Within two hours of the first spot fires being reported near Ms. Fisher’s house, others leapfrogged from one end of Paradise to the other. It was unintelligible. As one man said, “I thought that the only part of Paradise that was on fire was the part of Paradise we were looking at.”

As Ms. Fisher tried to escape, one thing after another went wrong. She couldn’t reach her sister. She was trapped behind a wall of cars. Then something started beeping: the low-fuel alert. She was almost out of gas, though it ultimately wouldn’t matter. Moments later, her car caught fire.