Articles by Meredith Cooper

Photo by Meredith J. Cooper Paradise Irrigation District Manager Kevin Phillips addresses a crowd of hundreds at the Paradise Alliance Church. Kevin Phillips looked out at a crowd of some 700 people, most of them […]

Photo by Meredith J. Cooper Frank Lewis (left), Julian Martinez and Michael Hart of Nor Cal Development have a plan to deal with a lack of clean water in Paradise: They’ll install storage tanks at […]

Photo by Meredith J. Cooper Heidi Schwartz (left) holds a cat trapped at 141089 Temple Circle in Magalia on Feb. 22. Joy Smith, who heads FieldHaven Feline Center in Lincoln and opened the Transfer Station […]

Alfonso Magdaleno would love to reopen Celestino’s Pizza and Pasta in Paradise, which sustained damage but did not burn in the Camp Fire. A lack of potable water is holding him back. “We do want […]

Photo by Michelle Camy Brian Von Tress, owner of Collision Pros, says all his Paradise employees continued work in other branches after the Camp Fire. He’s pictured here (third from left) at the Chico shop […]

Photo by Melissa Daugherty People are allowed to stay in their standing homes, despite their proximity to fire debris. There are still health hazards in the burn area, however, county personnel warn. When Jim Carrell […]

Photo by Charles finlay Residents will no longer be able to live on properties with burned structures until they are cleared. All the folks who’ve moved into trailers on their burned-out properties since the Camp […]

It seems just about everything these days revolves around the Camp Fire and recovery efforts. It is exciting to see progress being made, however slowly. This past week, I had a chance to talk with […]

Photo by Meredith J. Cooper Lok Keobouasom had this large water tank installed in order to have running water to wash dishes in his restaurant, Sophia’s Authentic Thai Cuisine. There are few things in life […]

John Millergeorge is living at the Red Cross shelter at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds so he can be close to home to take care of business that comes up. His house, in a mobile home […]

Last week, after talking about it for, I don’t know, six months at least, my boyfriend, Chuck, and I finally found ourselves at the counter ordering lunch at The Foodie Cafe. With its location all […]

Photo courtesy of Judy Martin Carr Fire survivor Judy Martin submitted photos along with a letter of complaint after the state-run debris removal left her property with a huge hole where her modular home once […]

I was talking the other day to a friend of mine who works at a local bank. We were catching up after not having seen each other in a while and, naturally, the Camp Fire […]

Photo by Meredith J. Cooper Stewart Nugent fought the flames from his house, to the left, but the Camp Fire claimed most of the rest of his neighborhood in central Paradise. On Tuesday (Dec. 31), […]

This coming year has to be better than the last one, right? I have to think so. As Paradise begins to rebuild, one of the biggest questions is going to be whether the town will […]