NFPA Journal - January/February 2020 - 22

Dispatches

C U LT U R E

DOCUMENTING WILDFIRE
A NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY FILM, FIRE IN PARADISE,
GENERATES OSCAR BUZZ AND JOINS A GROWING LIST
OF MOVIES ON THE 2018 CAMP FIRE
By Angelo Verzoni
orthern California is no
stranger to the conditions that prime an area
for a massive wildfire-
hot and dry weather with
high winds. But on November 8, 2018,
as those conditions descended on Butte
County and a red flag warning took
hold in the area, volunteer firefighter
Ray Johnson had a bad feeling about
what was occurring. "In my mind, it just
didn't feel right," he says.
Johnson's intuition proved accurate.
By the end of the month, Butte County
had become the site of the state's deadliest and most destructive wildfire ever,
the Camp Fire, which tore through the
towns of Paradise, Concow, Magalia,
and Pulga, killing 88 people, destroying
some 14,000 homes, and torching more
than 150,000 acres of land.
Johnson is one of several first
responders and survivors of the fire
to tell their stories in a new Netflix

N

22 | NFPA JOURNAL * J A N U A R Y / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 0

documentary on the Camp Fire, Fire
in Paradise. The 40-minute film
began showing on the streaming service in November, one year after the
historic blaze, and quickly generated
rave reviews, with sources calling it
"unforgettable," "nerve-racking," and
"powerfully visceral."

As fire advanced on a
school bus, teachers
began praying for what
they thought was the
best outcome-
a non-painful death.
Directed by Drea Cooper and Zackary
Canepari, the film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in September. The
following month it took home the Audience Award for Best Short Film at the

Hamptons International Film Festival,
which, according to film industry and
review website IndieWire, positions it
as a potential Oscar nominee. The 2020
Academy Awards is scheduled to air on
February 9.
"It's meant to put people in the shoes
of the characters and what it was like
to be there that day," Canepari said of
the film in an October interview with
SF Weekly. "It was
NFPA.ORG/
a traumatic, emoDISPATCHES
tional event." What
Watch a trailer for
the documentary
the new Netflix
documentary Fire tries to accomplish,
in Paradise.
Cooper added, is
to make people realize that wildfire
can happen anywhere, and they need
to be ready for it. "Everyone wants to
say, 'Oh, you know, it's happening over
there, it can't happen here,'" he said.
With no narration, Fire in Paradise
is carried solely by a seamless string
of powerful survival stories, including
the tale of a school bus full of children
threatened by the raging fire, as told by
two teachers who were on the bus.
As smoke started making its way
inside the vehicle, the students began
getting sleepy, with some of the younger
ones falling asleep, the teachers recall
in the film. The bus driver removed
his shirt and cut it into little pieces so
they could fashion makeshift filtration
devices for the children to breathe
http://www.NFPA.ORG/dispatches http://www.NFPA.ORG/dispatches
NFPA Journal - January/February 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - January/February 2020
