a ferocious wildfire raged for 17 days in nov. 2018 in and around paradise, calif., a town of 26,000 roughly 80 miles north of sacramento.
It was the deadliest and costliest in state history, claiming 86 lives and destroying 18,804 structures. Some 6,000 firefighters were deployed to tame the inferno, which consumed 153,336 acres. Only five percent of buildings in paradise survived. estimates peg total damage to be in excess of $16 billion. albeit open to dispute, the blaze is thought to have been caused by faulty overhead power lines. these photographs were taken on january 22, 2019.