Vehicles loaded with bikes and camping gear and hauling boats were stuck in gridlock traffic in the city of 22,000, stalled in hazy, brown air that smelled like a campfire. Police and other emergency vehicles whizzed by.
"There is fire activity happening in California that we have never seen before. The critical thing for the public to know is evacuate early," said Chief Thom Porter, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire. "For the rest of you in California: Every acre can and will burn someday in this state."
Porter said that only twice in California history have fires burned from one side of the Sierra Nevada to the other, both this month, with the Dixie and Caldor fires. "It's just yet another example of how wildfires have changed over the years," she said as she gathered treasures passed from her deceased parent and her husband's while they prepared to leave.
Home owners insurance on it’s way up again.