PARADISE, Calif. (BP) — Six years after the fire that took 85% of the town, Sam and Heather Walker are again looking to the sky and being ready for action at any time.

Sam, pastor of First Baptist Church in Paradise, had an early breakfast meeting with a friend on Nov. 8, 2018. He took note that it was particularly windy that morning. Those winds were whipping to 80 mph, fueling the soon-to-be-named Camp Fire into becoming the deadliest and most destructive in state history.

It was 7 a.m. when he finished breakfast at the Kalico Kitchen. From the parking lot Walker saw smoke in the distance and called his wife.

“She wasn’t as worried about it, but I thought it could be bad because of the winds,” he said. By the time he got home debris was already in the air.

“I knew we were going to have to evacuate and possibly could lose our home,” he said. “We had a school meeting at the church at the time and I called the principal and told her to tell parents to not bring their kids.”

It began the longest day of his life. The following hours were consumed with finding family and loved ones, making plans on where to meet — and when that didn’t work, how to escape. It required driving the wrong way on a four-lane road to break from traffic and the wall of flames descending on the town.

It was a hectic day full of smoke, darkness and desperation. And yet, Walker talks of a peace that’s hard to explain.

“I felt God directing my steps,” he said. “I’m not a very organized guy, but that day I was focused on the next step. It was the Lord.”

The Walkers lived on the eastern side of town, the one the fire got to first. He knew the situation was serious when a typical zone-by-zone evacuation process was skipped over. Everyone needed to leave immediately.  

“I had never seen fire taller than our 150-foot-tall trees and it was clear that this thing was coming fast,” he said.

A race out of town

Already in the process of leaving, the evacuation order put the couple in a faster gear. While Heather gathered some keepsakes and important documents, Sam warned neighbors.

Several hadn’t woken up yet. One had been partying until 3 a.m.

“He was pretty cranky with me at first, but then he saw the flames and the smoke,” said Walker. “Since then, he’s cleaned himself up, says I saved his life.”

Not everyone could be saved, though. Of the 85 who died from the fire, three were members of First Baptist while two others attended the Messianic Jewish fellowship Walker also led. Both congregations are part of the Sierra Butte Baptist Association.

Walker needed to pick up his son from work before going to his parents’ place. His dad was bedridden and it would take time — a very precious commodity at this point — to get him moved. Walker’s brother had recently moved there from Minnesota and would help.

“Fire was falling in chunks from the sky,” Walker remembered on picking up his son.

“Traffic was bumper to bumper. Even though it was nine in the morning, the sky was dark from the smoke but had this orange glow. We kept hearing explosions from propane tanks, cars, transformers and other things the fire would blow up.”

At one point Walker was stopped on Skyview, the main thoroughfare through town, with hundreds of other cars. With no one coming into Paradise in the northbound lanes and emergency vehicles already on-site, he turned on to that side of the road. Others followed him to break up the bottleneck.

As various family were in different cars, meeting up proved difficult. Everyone eventually made their way to safety in the city of Chico, 17 miles away.

A hospital was taking in Paradise evacuees requiring medical care, so Walker took his parents there. Sitting in a Barnes & Noble bookstore with his wife, he began wondering where they would stay.

A friend of his from Sri Lanka called. The friend now lived in Chico and had been attending the Jewish Messianic congregation led by Walker. He had two bedrooms available in his apartment.

“If you don’t stay with us, we’ll be offended,” he said.

The Walkers’ home was lost to the fire. First Baptist’s building remained standing. The flames approached close enough to claim the playground equipment, a storage area and cause some heat damage to the roof and gutters but came no further.

Eyes, focused

It’s difficult to adequately describe the before-and-after of Walker’s town. The population went from 26,561 to 6,516 in 2022. Walker said about another couple thousand have moved back. Only 15% of the buildings didn’t burn down. Businesses like Kalico Kitchen never came back.

But all in Paradise is not lost.

First Baptist’s food pantry has grown in importance and stature. Other mission efforts such as Operation Christmas Child have remained central to the church. Franklin Graham posted in appreciation of the congregation’s work weeks after the Camp Fire.

But those are not going to be what defines First Baptist.

“God put it on my heart that we needed to remain a church and not become a resource center,” Walker said. “Keep worship at the heart and focus on the Lord.”

His wife, Heather, is the sixth generation of her family to live in Paradise. Recent droughts have been bad, she said, but the water table is being impacted by how much is sent to Los Angeles.

“There were people digging wells further down and coming to the fire department to get water barrels filled up because they had no water at their homes,” she said.

After the Camp Fire, the Walkers bought a house about 20 minutes north of Paradise near Stirling City. Their son and his new bride were recently welcomed as the worship leaders at First Baptist. The expansion of the Park Fire, now the second-largest single wildfire in California’s history, prompted all of them to evacuate about a week and a half ago to two fifth-wheel campers in the church parking lot.

“She is a missionary kid from Romania, where her parents still are, and this is her first experience in California,” said Heather of her new daughter-in-law. “Their house was directly across the canyon from the Peace Fire. They could see it at night.”

The San Francisco Chronicle reported today on how Butte County — which contains Paradise and Chico — has, unfortunately, been the recipient of California’s recent wildfire barrage. First Baptist’s 125-year history has included such challenges, but those at yesterday’s service were reminded to focus on those things fire can’t claim.

“This is who we are — Honor God. Serve God. Love People,” said Dave Bruns, pastor of care, in his welcome. “Amen. That’s who we’re about.

“We’re grateful to have you here this morning. … How many of you ended up having to pack your stuff and evacuate?” he then asked.

Several hands, including the Walkers’, went up.

“We’ve been dealing with it like everybody,” Heather told Baptist Press on Aug. 2. “Our monthly women’s craft night last week had to be canceled because everyone was under evacuation warnings. We held it last night, but had to bring in air purifiers to make sure we didn’t have smoke in the rooms. We’re not sleeping well, especially from when you wake up and smell smoke.

“The biggest thing that has gotten us through this is worship,” she said. “We get our eyes off of what is going on around us and back on the Lord.”

(EDITOR’S NOTE — Scott Barkley is chief national correspondent for Baptist Press.)