By Megan Cattel, The Center for Public Integrity, August 25, 2020
After the Tubbs Fire in 2017, Anabel Garcia felt on edge every time an ambulance siren blared outside her home in Santa Rosa, California. Sirens reminded her of evacuating during the state’s second-deadliest wildfire, which killed 22 and destroyed 5,000 homes. Flames reached as close as five miles from her family’s house.
“It terrified us,” Garcia said in Spanish. “But it was scarier having to go through it all a second time.”
She means the Kincade Fire, which blazed through Sonoma County last fall. Garcia recalled the roads being blocked for hours, preventing her, her husband and their two teenage children from evacuating.
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