The Norton family has returned to its paradise.
Not Paradise proper, the mountain community the former Davis family called home for three years before the devastating Camp Fire destroyed their house one year ago today. Rather, they now live just up the road in Magalia.
Cal Norton, his wife Kimberly and children Bradley, 17; Madison, 12; and Makenzie, 8; moved back to Butte County in August after spending nine months in Davis recovering from their ordeal.
“The kids really wanted to get back to school here,” Cal Norton said in a phone interview this week. “They’re happy, and we love it up here. It’s quiet and it’s wooded.”
Bradley is in his senior year at Paradise High School, which merged with the local junior high due to fire damage at the latter campus. Makenzie, whose elementary school burned in the blaze, now attends school in Magalia along with several good friends.
Norton says Magalia is likely their new home for good, having seen their two-acre property — and the lush, forested neighborhood that lured them there — reduced to rubble and embers.
The Paradise Fire left nothing of the Nortons’ home. Courtesy photo
“I just see Paradise as having such a long way to go,” Norton said. “There is some rebuilding going on, but a pretty small amount.”
Still, the family looks forward to seeing their former community rebuild.
“It’s your friends and your neighbors,” Norton said. “You may not know them all, but you’re all in it together.”
Norton said he still marvels at the circumstances of Nov. 8, 2018, when a doctor’s appointment for his wife kept Norton from commuting that morning to his Davis business, Norton Lock & Key.
Instead, he took his children to school, where he first noticed the smoke drifting into town from a newly sparked wildfire that began across a canyon roughly 10 miles to the east.
Ignited by faulty PG&E electrical transmission lines and pushed by a howling east wind, what became known as the Camp Fire grew with astonishing speed, quickly spreading west toward Paradise and its 27,000 residents.
As the evacuation orders came in, the family got out, fleeing with their two dogs and a few belongings under a smoke-blackened sky that turned day into night.
They drove straight to Norton’s mother’s house in Davis, never thinking they’d have to remain in their former hometown for nearly a year as the Camp Fire — the deadliest and most destructive in state history — killed 85 victims and consumed 18,800 structures, most of them homes.
But they made do, enrolling their kids in local schools and furnishing their temporary home with items donated by friends, relatives, even perfect strangers. One former Davis resident, Addie Beck, passed along her cherished American Girl doll collection to the Norton girls.
“I was really overwhelmed by all the support. Everybody was amazing,” Norton said. “It surprises you, but then again when you think about it, it doesn’t, because that’s the way that Davis is.”
Today, the family faces a new challenge. Kimberly Norton fell ill while living in Davis and was diagnosed with a liver disease that kept her hospitalized for more than two months. While she’s being treated with medications, she ultimately will require a liver transplant.
“We’re ready for some good news,” her husband said.
As for the one-year anniversary of the fire, the family plans to spend it among their friends and neighbors, attending community events in Paradise to memorialize the town’s losses and celebrate its rise from the ashes.
Norton, who passes through Paradise twice daily during his work commute, says he’s been heartened by the progress he’s seen thus far.
“At first it was like a graveyard,” Norton said. But as the debris has been cleared and the rebuilding begins, “you’re seeing the land and not just the garbage. It’s nice to see.”
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene.
Being visible
The Davis Climate Strike group has been demonstrating at the corner of B Street and Russell Boulevard every Friday from 11:30 to 1 p.m. since the September climate march.
Nov. 8 marks the one-year anniversary of the Camp Fire. “Many displaced people from Paradise are now living in Davis,” organizers say. “Many more families in Northern California are now being affected by the wildfires again.”
See the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/events/741084739743790/
Read more:
Toy story: Displaced Paradise sisters receive cherished doll collection