Paradise Fire - We Moved to Santa Fe

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My mother and I (and my 3 birds) evacuated from the Camp Fire to a Redding motel with a neighbor. We were lucky to get out. Thousands of people -- both the towns of Paradise and Magalia, plus locations across the canyon from us -- were evacuating at once, so there was nowhere closer to stay. I'm not going to tell a gruesome tale, we were luckier than some because we left fairly early. There was a lot of smoke and I could hear propane tanks blowing up, but we did not escape with flames licking at the car, we didn't see anyone on fire. There were many people getting out on foot. It took us two days to find where my father had been taken. He was in a nursing home there in Paradise which was also destroyed, they hadn't been able to follow their evacuation plan -- most places couldn't simply because the fire was advancing so quickly. And the wind was gusting in different directions so it carried the fire all over town. Almost everything was lost. Nurses carried nursing home residents out to various vehicles -- my dad was put in a cop car and taken to Enloe Hospital in Chico to be checked out, then driven to a nursing home in Auburn.. My son and daughter in law arrived at the motel in Redding and totally rescued us. I didn't have a clue where we were going to go. Because of the thousands of homeless, housing in the area was full. People were living in tents in parking lots. I applied for FEMA housing relief, but fortunately didn't have to take it, because Devin and Kendall brought us home with them to Santa Fe. We arrived at our new home the day after Thanksgiving. We are going to be fine. Devin did a GoFundMe for us and my mom has received her fire insurance funds. We are in a guest room at Devin's house, and in July we'll move over to the attached apartment they own. Someone is leaving there and her lease will be up in July. We really did not want to barge in and displace her, so we are fine here till July. It's weird thinking we have to get everything at once, but we can slowly get things since we're right next door. I have never experienced so many ups and downs. Sometimes we still get depressed -- Paradise/Magalia was our home for about 40 years i-- 41 for my mom, 38 for me. But we have experienced amazing human kindness since this fire. Trust me, America is still all willing to reach out and help you when you are feeling almost unbearable loss, no matter politics or beliefs. People who have little themselves will give you the shirt off their backs and a big hug. We are so much luckier than many, having family to step up and take us in. We can now say "we survived the Fire of '18."