After Paradise

Setting The Table For Disaster; How And Why The Camp Fire Exploded

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Noah Berger

One of the questions so many people have about the Camp Fire is how and why it behaved the way it did -- especially the speed with which it moved through the canyons. So we decided to ask two experts. Earlier, I was joined in studio by pyro-geographer Zeke Lunder who's been on incident management teams for more than 20 years... he's a mapping specialist with the US Forest Service and Cal Fire. And Don Henkins... he's a professor at Cal State Chico and also a pyro-geographer. I started by asking Zeke what elements came together to make the Camp Fire so fast and so deadly.