'Paradise was sent to hell': revisiting the town destroyed by wildfire

The highlight of the social calendar in Paradise is Gold Nugget Days, a fair that celebrates its 19th-century Gold Rush origins and has been held every year since 1959. This year the tradition continued, as locals paraded in wild west period dress and set up stalls selling clothes, plants and honey in a lush community park.

There was one big difference, though. The manicured lawn was a lonely island of normalcy amid a landscape of char and ash.

Held last weekend, it was the first Gold Nugget festival since the wildfire that leveled Paradise and killed 85 people, making it America’s deadliest in a century. Tomorrow there will be another bittersweet landmark. It has been six months since the fire, and it has become clear that the town will not spring back to life and pick up where it left off at 6.30am on 8 November.

“I still just want to go home, and not home the place but home a moment in time,” said Trisha Wells, 41, who was a cardiac neurology technologist at the largest employer in town, Adventist Health Feather River. In February, the hospital