home to creatures both strange and wonderful. amazing things happen up in the trees. this blurry picture of my mom and dad from 2018 was taken in las vegas. i took it because i don't have that many pictures of my parents together, because they ain't together. it was an unusual event made more unusual because we'd all gone to vegas to escape this. >> devastating news out of california. >> the camp fire. >> the camp fire. >> the camp fire. >> houses and flames, forests being scorched. >> the most destructive fire in california history. >> agh. lucky for us the fires hadn't made it to where my family lives in oakland, but the air had

gotten so bad that it wasn't safe to breathe. so my wife and i took me, the asthmatic, my elderly parent, and our kids straight to vegas. not because we wanted to gamble, but because it was close and there were cheap flights. now back then, it seemed like a oneself-in-a-lifetime thing. >> rescue, what is your emergency? >> reporter: but ever since, the fires in california have gotten worse. >> dixie fire. >> woolsey fire. >> are more towns burned to the ground, more forests devastated and more refugees. this episode is about californians and fire, because we got to learn how to get along. ♪ ♪

now if you're thinking that you're safe because you live outside of california, nope. wildfires happen across america, from alaska to florida. and they happen all over the world. >> wildfires sweeping across -- >> australia. >> cape town. >> estonia and turkey. >> all the way to the north pole. >> and even if they aren't happening near you, the effects are definitely coming to your doorstep. there is less food due to crop damage. there is tainted water. and oh, that toxic air. so i'm heading north from my home in oakland to a part of my state that has been the epicenter of some of the largest, most destructive and deadly wildfires in california history. one of those fires began at

6:15 a.m. on november 8th, november 18, off camp creek road. it quickly grew into what would become known as the camp fire, one of california's most devastating and deadly records on fire. >> it was november. so i don't want to say our guard was down. but in november, typically we would be having rain and winter, and we weren't. >> now when we talk about fires we think about firefighters running into a burning house to put the fire out. but in a wildfire situation, it can be a whole town. and often it's the town the firefighters live in. that's the situation chief joe tapia, chief sean norman found themselves in. they are cal fire officers from butte county. they were among the firefighters dispatched to tackle the blaze in their own backyard. i want to talk about the camp fire and how that affected this community, how it affected the three of you.

>> matt and joe both lost their homes there. so that's what was different about the camp fire is that it finally hit our home community. >> just a blanket statement. i haven't talked about the camp fire much. >> okay. >> hopefully i don't choke up. i haven't had to get that out of my system yet. >> yeah, you know. even with the work that you do and the work you do every day, it's got to be hard to think about this side of it and this side of it, you know. so i understand. >> yeah, so i was off-duty, and i got a text message from a buddy of mine who was in the valley. and he goes hey, man, a pretty big fire. and he sent me a picture of this header. and i thought he was looking out to the west side of the valley. and he said no, bud, that's you. and immediately i looked up and i went oh, man. hopped in the truck and went to work. >> it's got to be hard to be the person who is thinking about your family and your house, and also i have to go out into the field. >> right now in california,

millions of people remain at risk as firefighters battle what's become the most destructive and deadliest outbreak of wildfires in the state's history. >> some of the worst damage seen in the northern town of paradise. all that day was about for the first eight hours was finding pockets of human beings. >> please, god, please, god. >> we have people trapped. and everyone has a propane tank up there, right? so the explosions were nonstop. and the fire front was getting closer. so the louder they got through the smoke, you knew it was coming. >> oh, wow. >> there was a ton of traffic coming into paradise. had to get home and get their dog, get their kids. so they're jamming traffic up. i said hey, we have to do something with skyway. so i just stopped at the intersection and turned everybody around. that was one of the hardest things i've ever done you. had people that my kids are at home. and i had to be like i'm sorry, but everybody here is going to die if we don't get all four

lanes going south. >> i saw people rung on foot, carrying babies and dogs and their hair catching on fire from embers. at one point, we're hearding them into a walgreens to shelter them. i think we ended up with over 100 people in there. and i remember the firefighters going is this going to work? and i go i don't know. but if they're outside when the fire front hits, it's going to kill them all. it was chaos. >> by the end of the day on november 8th, almost 19,000 structures had been destroyed and 85 people had died. >> how many times did we try to get to a person that we couldn't make it to, or get somebody, you know, too late. >> i just can't imagine what that feels like. >> i think the campfire is really a story of stories. and so there is two words that are interchangeable a lot, and

that's bravery and heroism, but they're different. in bravery in our job is an expectation, right. but you're looking at two people who stayed in the fight that day even though they lost everything they owned. and these two are in that rare area of being a hero because of that. >> i would imagine nobody would have blamed you both to say i got to go be with my family. what made you stay and do the work? >> when i saw the house was gone, i kind of took a moment and said all right, well, go back to work. >> oh my god. >> i think i just kind of shut that part of it off. there is nothing i can do about that, but here's what i can do. yeah. you go back to your training. >> wow. >> as a kid, firefighter is one of those jobs like astronaut or lion tamer. it sounds like a fun adventure, but you don't actually end up doing it. i wonder if when matt, joe and sean first signed up for their job if they had any idea what they were getting into. seems like fire season has gotten worse, is that true?

>> when i first started, fire season seemed to be three or four months out of the summertime. and 20 years later, we're still in fire season. >> i remember going to a fire 18,000 acres, and people told me that's a career fire. the dixie did 150,000 in one day. >> please talk to the misunderstanding of what people think firefighters do, specifically in this area? >> we can get deployed to these fires in any part of the state at almost any time. and i don't know when i'll be coming back home. is it going to be tonight or is it going to be two months from now? >> i don't think most of us realize that you guys are gone for weeks on end like that. >> my record is 58 days straight. >> at least 30 plus. yeah. >> i did 59 days straight last summer. >> yeah. >> fire season, it's getting longer, and it's getting worse. and i see the sticker, you know. santa rosa strong, sonoma county strong, napa strong, paradise strong. i can just keep naming

communities off, right, where these fires have destroyed these communities, taken lives, changed lives. this thing is an iceberg. there is way more to it that no one sees. >> yeah. yeah, wow. despite knowing that the problem is only getting bigger and bigger, firefighters continue to put their lives on the line to protect us. big game today! everybody ready? alexa, ask buick to start my enclave. starting your buick enclave. i just love our new alexa.

dad, it's a buick. i love that new alexa smell. it's a buick. we need snacks for the team. alexa, take us to the nearest grocery store. getting directions. alexa will get us there in no time. it's a buick. let's be real. don't make me turn this alexa around. oh my. it's painful. the buick enclave, with available alexa built in. ask “alexa, tell me more about buick suvs.” i recommend nature made vitamins because i trust their quality. they were the first to be verified by usp... ...an independent organization that sets strict quality and purity standards. nature made. the number one pharmacist recommended vitamin and supplement brand. ooh, i can't wait to get you home! ooh! i'm gonna eat you up when you get home. oh my goodness. oh yeah. i can't wait. i'm just gonna bite you! oh, baby. that looks amazing! marco's. pizza lovers get it. migraine hits hard, so u hit back with ubrelvy u level up u won't take a time-out one dose of ubrelvy works fast it can quickly stop migraine

in its tracks within 2 hours without worrying if it's too late or where you are unlike older medicines, ubrelvy is a pill that directly blocks a protein believed to be a cause of migraine. do not take with strong cyp3a4 inhibitors. most common side effects were nausea and tiredness. migraine pain relief starts with u learn how abbvie could help you save. ask about ubrelvy, the anytime, anywhere migraine medicine. ♪ if you shop at walmart, you get it. ♪ you're not just getting by. ♪ you're getting the most out of what you've got. ♪ and you know how to spend a little less, to get a little more, to make life a little better. ♪ when a normal day is anything but normal, we fit your schedule, with our unique tub over tub process installed in as little as a day. bath fitter. it just fits.

visit bathfitter.com to book your free consultation. welcome to allstate where anyone who bundles their home and auto insurance saves. isn't that right phil? sorry, i'm a little busy. what in the world are you doing? i'm in the metaverse, bundling my home and auto insurance. why don't you just do that in the real world? um, because now i can bundle in space. watch this. save up to 25% when you bundle home and auto. call a local agent or 1-888-allstate for a quote today.

okay. need another reason to heighten your already heightened sense of post 2020 panic? nine out of the ten largest wildfires in california history have occurred in the last decade. in 2021, the dixie fire alone burnt 963,000 acres. that's bigger than rhode island. feel even more panic now? good. me too. with a problem this big and scary, there must be people with solutions that can also calm me down with some slightly peppy and measured tones. yep, i'm talking weathermen. specifically, meteorologists. really appreciate you both really have meteorology hands. patrick brown is a meteorologist, climate expert and professor at san jose state university's wildfire interdisciplinary research center. and holt hanley, a great weatherman name, his grad student and on air weather ankle for kspw.

his focus is wildfire forecasting. because that's a thing. i live in oakland. there hasn't been a wildfire since i've been living there. but i have asthma. so during fire season, sometimes i look at the air quality off my phone, and it's don't go outside. seal every window. >> that's really the pathway that most people are affected by the fires. there is even an economic analysis of the 2018 season. they found that the economic impact of the health effects of the lowered air quality was just as high as all of the destruction of structures literally burning down. so my perception in the time that i've been here is that the wildfires are affecting a bigger swath of california. >> yeah. basically like ten times more area is burning per year now than there was in the '70s or '80s. >> why is that? >> so, you know, there are two things. the climate change issue, that's a global problem. and it's going to continue to

get warmer in the west, that means dryer, more conducive to fires. but also, we have huge buildup of fuels because of fire suppression. >> what do you mean? >> california is a fire adapted ecosystem. so essentially for many decades, the western united states implemented a strategy of putting out fires as soon as they were ignited. >> patrick is talking about what's known as the era of fire suppression. remember smoky the bear? >> only you can prevent forest fires. >> well, smoky was too good at his job. generations of kids like me grew up thinking that fire was bad. it turns out that's not quite true. fire is a part of nature. the california landscape actually wants and uses fire. in fact, some of the trees, like the giant sequoia, actually need fire to reproduce, for real. but once white colonizers came west, timber became a precious

commodity and fire the enemy to be stamped out. then in 1910, wildfires destroyed three million acres across the uswest. so the u.s. forest service made it their policy to put out any fire as soon as it started. as a result, forests became dense and overgrown. there were too many small young trees and dead trees and dry brush accumulated on the floor. add drought and climate change to the mix and you have the perfect kindling for a wildfire. isn't there a part that the wildfires started to do things people hadn't seen them do before? >> yeah. one thing i noticed is how fast the wildfires move. you can look at it one hour. and then in the next hour, the situation is completely changed. i think we definitely saw that on the caldor fire this last year. the best way to think about this is the fire behavior triangle, weather, fuel,top topography. on that fire we had a red flag warning, which means it's

extremely dry out. we had extreme winds, which makes it easier for the fire to move forward. it's in very steep terrain. fire likes to move uphill. and then we had a lot of dead fuels because of drought. >> are there technologies being worked on or things that you feel hopeful about that we're developing? >> yeah, the wharf-f fire, the forecast model we run takes all the factors, the weather, the fuel, the topography and show you an exact picture of how that fire is going to move over time. so we have two different trucks. when is a lidar truck. one is a radar truck. it's basically like storm chasing for wildfires. >> oh, wow. >> basically drive the trucks up, collect a bunch of data, and the ultimate goal is to be able to create the simulation and give that to firefighters. >> if you really know what the fire is going to do that day, then you can deploy resources in the most efficient way. >> i mean, storm chasing already sounds crazy. but fire chasing sounds even crazier. while it's comforting to know that new technologies are being

developed, we got a bigger problem. to quote george clooney from oceans 11, we need more people. yep, california has a shortage of firefighters. according to one report, in 2021, only half of u.s. forest service engines were fully staffed. state and federal agencies struggled to retain firefighters because burnout, long deployments, and often low pay. yeah, low pay to fight fires. and there is another reason california is running out of firefighters, and this reason might break your brain. since 1942, we've been using low security inmates to fight fires. today approximately 1/3 of california's wildland firefighting case are currently incarcerated which saves california taxpayers approximately $100 million per year. but because of prison reform and the early release of some incarcerated folks since 2020, there are not enough people to throw at the fires.

how's your brain? and to make matters worse, once these people are released from prison, they often can't find jobs as firefighters even though they're already trained because, well, people don't like hiring ex-inmates. my brain! how did you meet? >> we was locked up together, straight up. >> okay. >> luckily brandon smith and royal ramie are here to fix that. they're professional firefighters who started their careers in california's fire conservation camps while they were incarcerated. what was that decision like to join the fire group? >> better situation. >> we live in an area like this instead of concrete walls and barbed wire. >> one of the highest paying prisoners. >> how much did it pay? >> at that time it was about $1.45 a day. but then we work on fires, you get a dollar an hour. >> that's still crazy, right? >> right. >> that's still. >> i didn't have no idea what i was getting myself into. but as time went on, it grew on

me, and i fell in love with it. >> i found a sense of purpose for myself. i found a way i could give back. you have all these folks with signs saying thank you, firefighters. what? you thanking me? >> like you're a real american. >> right. >> so what was it like when you got out? >> i mean, it was hard. i spent almost two years trying to firefight. i would be applying to jobs. i'm sorry, sir, you're not qualified. i'm sorry, you don't have all the certification. >> why aren't they hiring you? >> straight up, the united states of america has a problem utilizing incarcerated people, period. >> we were firefighters before. we came home. we should be able to do it again. >> if there is any job want to do it and you the skills? come on. this would be the joj. >> nah. >> yeah, no. >> firefighters probably like the most respected career in the country, right? so when you talk about formerly incarcerated people who are transitioning over into a space of the highest moral regard, a

lot of people don't want us in space. black folks formerly incarcerated people. but what folks don't realize, we're already out here. we've been protecting your homes for the past three years when i was locked up. it's interesting. the person that gave us our first shot was a black woman. her name was chief betty ashe. black women. >> once we did this professionally, realizing people coming home ain't going to have the pathways we have, we wanted to be that support system. >> to create that support system, in 2015, brandon and royal established the forestry and fire recruitment program, a nonprofit which provides training, coaching, and employment pathways to help currently and formerly incarcerated firefighters transition into firefighting careers. >> when we started this thing, he quit forest service. >> oh, wow. >> i sacrificed by job for cal fire. >> you gave up the goal to actually give back. >> this is more of a legacy that we need to push because there's not too many black role models

in this space to be able to say hey, i was there. it's doable, and we can be able to lead folks to the promised land in a sense. >> we get formerly incarcerated firefighters, we give them a job for six months to a year. so after a year, you got your training certificates. we help you how to apply for these jobs. now you should be ready to go and thrive. >> for sure. >> the proof is in the pudding at the end of the day. we helped over 125 people get jobs in the fighter service. >> wow. so you know how to clear the path. >> look at us, two brothers formerly incarcerated somehow figured out a way to build this nonprofit and truly help people out, because we want to do it. >> good work. >> absolutely. absolutely. tly 10am. then paying him right there on the spot. we'll drive you happy at carvana. so we need something super disctintive. dad's work, meet daughter's playtime. wait 'till you hear this— thankfully, meta portal helps reduce background noise.

zero lace model. adjusts to low light. and pans and zooms to keep you in frame. take a look at this. so the whole team stays on track. okay, let's get you some feedback. i'm impressed. great, loving your work. meta portal. the smart video calling device that makes work from home, work for you. flowers are fighters. that's why the alzheimer's association walk to end alzheimer's is full of them. because flowers find a way to break through. just like we will. join the fight at alz.org/walk moderate to severe eczema still disrupts my skin. despite treatment it disrupts my skin with itch. it disrupts my skin with rash. but now, i can disrupt eczema with rinvoq. rinvoq is not a steroid, topical, or injection. it's one pill, once a day, that's effective without topical steroids. many taking rinvoq saw clear or almost-clear skin

while some saw up to 100% clear skin. plus, they felt fast itch relief some as early as 2 days. that's rinvoq relief. rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb. serious infections and blood clots, some fatal, cancers including lymphoma and skin cancer, death, heart attack, stroke, and tears in the stomach or intestines occurred. people 50 and older with at least one heart disease risk factor have higher risks. don't take if allergic to rinvoq, as serious reactions can occur. tell your doctor if you are or may become pregnant. disrupt the itch and rash of eczema. talk to your doctor about rinvoq. learn how abbvie can help you save.

as a business owner, your bottom line is always top of mind. so start saving by switching to the mobile service designed for small business: comcast business mobile. flexible data plans mean you can get unlimited data or pay by the gig. all on the most reliable 5g network with no line activation fees or term contracts... saving you up to $500 a year. and it's only available to comcast business internet customers. so boost your bottom line by switching today. comcast business. powering possibilities.

california's dixie fire is threatening thousands of buildings. >> the dixie fire. >> the massive dixie fire has now grown to be the second largest in state's history. >> we're seeing truly frightening fire behavior. >> fire tore through greenville, california. >> small town of greenville. >> essentially been wiped off the map. >> this entire town is gone. >> it was just in august of 2021 that the dixie fire destroyed the town of greenville. but the media has long since moved on. four months after the disaster, though, not much has changed for the people who call this place

home. jesus. never seen anything like this. you can still smell, like, ash and burn, but also smell the trees. there is like a pine smell. there is also maybe a chemical smell, maybe because of all the plastic. it makes my stomach hurt a little bit. never seen this stuff this close up before. >> yeah. it was heartbreaking, man. >> it's been four months. a lot of the stuff has just been sitting here. >> yeah. we're in the midst of it. we're in the midst of the fire. you can still -- it looks like a bomb still went off. >> man. >> i'm just devastated. we're all in this together, you know. this is our whole greenville tribe, even the nonnatives. >> my new tribal member danny manning and his family have

called greenville home for generations. >> here, we don't have a reservation. we're part of the community. so the tribe is a big part of this town. . >> long before it was ever called greenville, these were the sacred ancestral lands. >> you know we used to be large around here, but you got to remember that we've already been through the apocalypse. 97% of our tribe was either murdered or died from disease, because this was ground zero for the gold rush. >> the white settlers' temperature search for power and mountain lion. but danny and his people have not given up. >> you know, we're always trying to protect our sacred mountains and what we got left of our culture, real parts of our creation story all happened right here on this ground. >> it's understandable then that the tribal members of this community who have already experienced so much intergenerational trauma were hit hard by the fire.

a tragedy compounded by the fact that until recently, native wisdom about how to co-exist with the fire had been suppressed. >> it said before the whites came here that people could ride horses like three side by side all through these forests around here, that it was that open. >> wow. danny is a seasoned firefighter. he helped establish a native-run fire department for the greenville rancheria. talk about the importance of the firehouse led that was led by your tribe? >> we teach more of the traditional knowledge, not just putting out the fire, but taking care of the earth. and if you take care of the earth, the earth will take care of you. you know, the old native ways. >> to learn more about this, danny invited me to sit down with tribal member trina cunningham who is directorate of a consortium and a tribal conservation specialist. >> one of the important aspects of it to me is the relationship of humanity with nature. and it seems that we've

forgotten that relationship. >> yeah. >> and forgotten that natural law is the number one ruler. for example, our ancestors knew that fire is the only thing that at a landscape scale can fight fire. >> since time immemorial, indigenous folks maintained forests known today as cultural burning by setting low intensity, controlled burns at different times, they cleared away dead brush and fuels from the forest floor, protecting the forest from larger fires. but cultural burning was about more than just preventing catastrophic wildfire. the practice also helped promote growth of different traditional food sources and fire resistant species. indigenous folks knew what they were doing. >> i mean, that's the way the tribes did it. and they never put out a fire. if there is a fire that happened on a ridge, they let it burn down and do what it's going to do naturally. it's the only way to manage that much land. >> is there a part of this that maybe you feel like if we had been in charge of this land,

this would not have happened? >> this fire absolutely would not have happened if it were cared for by tribal people. and we want to be able to share our knowledge, and people are continually asking us, can we do cultural burning. well, are you tribal? and why would you want to do cultural burning without us? >> ooh, yeah. look what happened when the white man got yoga. look how that went. >> we're starting to try to sway the agencies to think about native burning. >> yep, yeah. >> and that's passing on that traditional knowledge that it does have value, even if you're not indian. >> like here and now today, how can we change human behavior, and how can we rebuild that relationship of humanity to this earth? >> only way to maintain these forests is quit fighting mother nature. because mother nature is going to win. >> yeah. you know, even in the talk about how the climate is changing, we act like the earth is coming to an end. no, the earth is still going to

be here. we just may not be here with it. >> yeah. whole place to yourself. no stranger at the dinner table making things awkward. or in another room taking up space. it's just you and your people. because why would you ever share your vacation home with someone you wouldn't share your vacation with. ♪ ♪ when high quality is the only quality that matters, we fit your standards, with no-compromise quality and a lifetime guarantee. bath fitter. it just fits. visit bathfitter.com to book your free consultation.

homegrown tomatoes...nice. i want to feel in control of my health, so i do what i can. what about screening for colon cancer? when caught in early stages it's more treatable. i'm cologuard. i'm noninvasive and i detect altered dna in your stool to find 92% of colon cancers, even in early stages. early stages? yep, it's for people 45 plus at average risk for colon cancer, not high risk. false positive and negative results may occur. ask your provider if cologuard is right for you. consider it done. i recommend nature made vitamins because i trust their quality. they were the first to be verified by usp... ...an independent organization that sets strict quality and purity standards. nature made. the number one pharmacist recommended vitamin and supplement brand.

while california hopefully learns more lessons about the holistic practice of cultural burning, at least we are finally beginning to understand that you do need to fight fire with fire.

in order to protect the land from the bad fire, more and more permits are being issued to conduct prescribed burns, aka good fire. but you got to know what you're doing to get the permit. >> so we're going to take out this top little corner. we're going take our time. >> today i'm going the hang out with some people who definitely know what they're doing at a prescribed burn on private property. >> always try to be downhill of the fire. >> leading the way are wildfire analyst zeke lunder and don hankins, a member of the plains mewoc tribe. >> a couple of miles ago the camp fire burned a quarter mile from here. they've been living with this extreme fear of fire. so we got this effort started locally to make it easier for landowners to burn their own land. >> the object is to not kill the big trees, but we do want to kill little baby trees. we want to kill brush. >> the more communities live in these kinds of environments can use fire, the better off they're going to be. >> if you each grab a torch,

we'll get moving on. this. >> my 8-year-old dream's come true. this is part of a larger conservation project that don and zeke are involved in. training people in the practice of prescribed fire. >> we got lots of different fuel types out here. we got oak leaves. we got pine needles. the pine needles burn better. >> i'm learning along with the other members of the community. they want to help our state by safely using good fire in a controlled setting. the key word is controlled. >> good day to light a fire. there you go. >> that's good. let's go. we're just burning up the easy, dry grass. and we're just going to work our way down slope with our ignitions. >> small spot fires are slowly lit down the hill, supervised by zeke and don. everyone has a radio and a weather spotter checks for any changes in the wind. and cal fire officers are standing by. can you tell i'm trying to say don't try this at home? >> picking up fire and dropping

it through the forest, the way we were all taught not to do as children. >> so the idea is not that we're never going to have fire here again. but when we do, it won't be hot enough to kill all these trees. >> it will stay low to the ground. >> yeah. we're looking great here. >> all with pitchforks with start coming in here. >> fire is a very social thing. if you can have the family involved, it should be like second nature to have that level of comfort in the culture around fire. >> wow. look at that. look at that over there. whoa! >> i mean, if i was just walking and i saw fire this high, i would be ahh! but very quickly out there today, i sort of was like this is what we're supposed to do. >> i think that's where we used to be going back 150 years or more, and that's where we need to be. >> you want to come out here and light something with a torch? >> yeah, sure. >> light one right there. and let's light every one step, okay. >> okay. >> fire is the teacher.

going on down. and if you spend time with fire, then you get the lessons. yeah, it's perfect. >> wow. a very zen mind state. >> exactly. there is a lot of people who can benefit from doing this. >> you rant kidding. i pay $125 for therapy. i just come up here. >> the leaders are supposed to be in charge of california's environment still feel they're at war with wildfire, and no one is getting it right. as long as we keep fighting that war, we're spending billions of dollars a year and fire is still burning down the lands. we've been fighting for 100 years. now it's teamed up with climate change. we need a truce, you know. come up with some terms, a settlement. like we've occupied fire's territory. and if you build a settlement in fire's territory, you can keep living there, but you got to be all right with fire coming in whenever it wants, you know? >> it's so weird that a second

ago there was five-foot flames. now it's sort of out. it's super fascinating. is there a reason for optimism like this? >> i don't think that we're going to be able to prescribe burn our way to help the entire landscape be safe. but i think it can help. >> i think we are heading in a good direction with it. now the state is finally at the point with policies that came forward today to recognize cultural burning. so it's now codified in some state law, and i was able to work on some of that policy development. the state has a plan that's coming forward. we're targeting the to burn 5,000 acres by 2025 within the state. that's not enough, but it's a starting point. and i think that the more that people get used to this idea, then it will happen. so that we can have fire on our own terms out here. >> first time lighting fire, not getting yelled at by my mom. >> this is -- this is kind of cool.

♪ if you shop at walmart, you get it. ♪ you save on what you need without skimping on the things you love. ♪ you know how to spend a little less to get a little more to make life a little better. ♪ ubrelvy helps u fight migraine attacks. u put it all on the line.

u do it all. so u bring ubrelvy. it can quickly stop migraine in its tracks within 2 hours... without worrying if it's too late or where you are. unlike older medicines, ubrelvy is a pill that directly blocks a protein believed to be a cause of migraine. do not take with strong cyp3a4 inhibitors. most common side effects were nausea and tiredness. migraine pain relief starts with u. learn how abbvie can help you save. ask about ubrelvy, the anytime, anywhere migraine medicine. i typed in grandma's name and birth year... and there she was, working at the five and dime. my dad's been wondering about his childhood address for 70 years... and i found it in five minutes. ...that little leaf helped me learn all the names from the old neighborhood... it felt like a treasure hunt. the 1950 census adds vivid new detail to your family story. and it's available now on ancestry. we're a different kind of dentistry. one who believes in doing anything it takes to make dentistry work for your life.

so we offer a complete exam and x-rays free to new patients without insurance - everyday. plus, patients get 20% off their treatment plan. we're on your corner and in your corner every step of the way. because your anything is our everything. aspen dental. anything to make you smile. book today at aspendental.com, walk in, or call 1-800-aspendental. flowers are fighters. that's why the alzheimer's association walk to end alzheimer's is full of them. because flowers find a way to break through. just like we will. join the fight at alz.org/walk we're carvana we created a brand new way for you to sell your car go to carvana answer a few questions and our techno wizardry calculates your car's value and gives you a real offer in seconds we'll come to you pay you on the spot then pick up your car that's it at carvana

big game today! everybody ready? alexa, ask buick to start my enclave. starting your buick enclave. i just love our new alexa. dad, it's a buick. i love that new alexa smell. it's a buick. we need snacks for the team. alexa, take us to the nearest grocery store. getting directions. alexa will get us there in no time. it's a buick. let's be real. don't make me turn this alexa around. oh my. it's painful. the buick enclave, with available alexa built in. ask “alexa, tell me more about buick suvs.” california is the most populous state in the u.s. with over 39 million people, and our homes are getting closer to the

wilderness. this is called the wildland urban interface. basically, if fire is a gang, then we're invading its territory. and since there is no quick fix to climate change or our forest fuels problems, wildfires aren't backing down from their territory. so why don't we just leave? well, people have called this land home since long before it was called california. and home can't be so easily replaced. walking through paradise, you can feel a town that refuses to go away. but you can also see that it's still going to take a lot of time to get it to come back. four years later, so many residents are still living in trailers. like retiree kevin meir. >> it took a while to adjust to the downsizing. that's what i call it. at the time, i was quite naive too, because i thought oh, i'll rebuild within a year. but that was not going to

happen. the challenges have been, besides monetary is just getting in line with 30,000 other people trying to rebuild, you know. and so you just get in the queue. >> julian martinez wants to help people like kevin who are still hoping to rebuild. he is a paradise native who lost his home to the fire. but he is determined to help reconstruct his town. >> this is home. i would regret not coming back and helping to be a part of rebuilding. it's almost kind of like therapy. >> so tell me about this house that we're sitting in front of. >> this house was started by another builder. they weren't able to finish the house. so the owner had a third party come in and do an evaluation on it and found that she had been overcharged. it got left in this condition. so we got on board to help the lady get it moving again. >> wow. when i think about the

wildfires, i think about hurricane katrina in new orleans. there is the devastation that happens when the event happens, and then the devastation afterwards of not knowing who to trust and people who come in and take advantage of people at their moment of need, you know. >> uh-huh. one of the really unfortunate parts of it is there is probably a billion dollars that went through this town and left. >> what did that billion do? how did it go through the town? which had contractors from all over the country that came for things like debris removal was a big one. i would think that in a disaster, it would be more effective to incorporate a local workforce into the recovery efforts more. >> yeah, yeah, yeah. >> they brought in thousands of trailers for the workers to stay in. meanwhile, all the residents are in economic peril, just left behind. >> wow. >> the trees were another thing. millions and millions and millions of dollars of trees just gone. >> like the trees got taken out and somebody made money off those trees? >> somebody did. but nobody up here. it just makes you really angry. the aftermath, we're still seeing it play out.

and we're talking about all these different issues in paradise, one of which is the trailer ordinance. the town council was very aggressively kicking people off their properties. >> off their own properties? >> off their own properties. you had to have a permit to live in a trailer on your own property. but they would only give you a permit if you had an active building permit. so the people who didn't have the money to rebuild, who had nowhere else to go, but they still owned this piece of property acquired a trailer, weren't allowed to live on their own property. >> it was very, very stressful. i lost many nights' sleep trying to hustle and get my permit done. and me and 10,000 other people. there is people that rebuilt and have their homes. and there is us that don't. there is getting to be a bigger divide because they don't want to look at us, which i understand. it ruins their property value. about 60 people are protesting that they don't have the financing. we can't build as fast as we like. so they extended it for another

two years. and that's been a godsend. >> talk more about ways you think people can rebuild in a safer way. >> so we have the wui, the wild land urban interface. building codes went into effect. these building codes do help prevent houses from burning down. the other is defensible space. just by keeping all the brush away from your house, give it some space, use lots of rock. be proactive about how you maintain your yard, decrease the chances of your house burning down immensely. >> if you want to live up here in this beautiful picturesque part of the world you have to do it responsibly. >> oh, yeah. it definitely comes with some maintenance. ...an independent organization that sets strict quality and purity standards. nature made. the number one pharmacist recommended vitamin and supplement brand. so we need something super disctintive. dad's work, meet daughter's playtime.

wait 'till you hear this— thankfully, meta portal helps reduce background noise. zero lace model. adjusts to low light. and pans and zooms to keep you in frame. take a look at this. so the whole team stays on track. okay, let's get you some feedback. i'm impressed. great, loving your work. meta portal. the smart video calling device that makes work from home, work for you. if maga republicans get their way, abortion will be banned nationwide, with no exceptions. medicare and social security will end in five years, with no replacement. elections will be decided by politicians, with no regard for your vote. if maga republicans get back in power, your rights, benefits and freedoms will be in danger. democrats will protect your rights. and the only way to stop maga republicans is to vote for democrats. ff pac is responsible for the content of this ad. i'm a fancy exercise bike noobie. and i've gone from zero to obsessed in like...

three days. instructor: come on milwaukee! i see you! after riding twelve miles to nowhere, i'm taking a detour. and if you don't have the right home insurance coverage, you could be working out a way to pay for this yourself. get allstate and be better protected from mayhem for a whole lot less. hey, it's me...your skin. some cleansers get us clean - but take my moisture. cerave cleansers help me maintain my moisture balance with hyaluronic acid, plus 3 essential ceramides to help restore my natural barrier. so we're cerave clean. cerave hydrating cleanser.

as more and more people move into wilderness areas, it's not surprising at all that around 84% of the wildfires in the united states today are started by humans. people start huge fires in many different ways. arson, a gender reveal party, and criminal negligence on the part of corporations. specifically, pg&e, northern california's gas and electric utility. over a six-year period from 2013 to 2019, pg&e were responsible

for starting over 1500 wildfires. this includes the camp fire. and that one pg&e pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter. for many in northern california, including me, pg&e has become a four-letter word. i'm just taking a poll of everybody i talk to. word association. pg&e. >> fire. >> corporate greed. >> outdated. >> outdated. >> fall guy. >> lacking. >> my word is accountability. >> accountability, yeah, that would be nice. fighting for that accountability is mark tuolumne, the executive director of the utility reform network. >> we're an organization that's been around for about 50 years fighting for customers of pg&e. >> and law professor katherine sandoval from santa clara university. she is a former commissioner of the cpuc, the body that regulates pg&e. >> so pg&e was convicted of

multiple violations related to the san bruno natural gas explosion. >> back in 2010? >> uh-huh. >> 2010. >> so like any felon, pg&e is on felony probation. and the first order is commit no more crimes. in the course of their probation, they've started multiple wildfires. >> during their probation? >> yes. >> they're committing further crimes. i was just watching "goodfellas". >> if a person committed this, they would be locked up in jail. but you can't lock a corporation in jail. >> what really upsets people is there is a pattern of pg&e doing inspections, finding out that the trees need to be cut down, power lines need to be repaired, and then not repairing them. and before you know it, we have a major fire. that's part of what happened with the camp fire. >> the grand jury report on the camp fire concluded that the

fire started when a c-hook on one of pg&e's electrical transmission towers broke. this caused a high voltage cable to fall. the sparks from the resulting short circuit ignited the dry brush below. although pg&e's records were unclear on specifics, it was estimated that the broken c-hook along with other components of the tower had been in use for about 97 years. yeah. >> they had inspected that transmission tower and had reported that they were going to replace the critical parts, but they never got around to it. >> and the camp fire is not the only time pg&e's negligence caused major fire damage to california. investigations have concluded that pg&e were responsible for starting the deadly zogg fire, the kincade fire and most recently the dixie fire that destroyed greenville. >> so i spend my time working for free as co-counsel on the

federal crawl probation case. i want to help promote and protect accountability. i want to rehabilitate pg&e. one of the things we brought up in the proceedings is that pg&e continues to engage in criminal thinking. it wasn't just an accident. it was the product of recklessness. so if pg&e was a person, within their first year of incarceration, they would have had to have taken criminal thinking classes. they help you to stop engage in that criminal thinking in order to rehabilitate yourself. corporations are not required to take a class to make them recognize their criminal thinking. so that's part of why what we proposed is for the board, right. >> i have to take some class in criminal thinking. if we're going make them take those classes, can they be at 5:00 in the morning on a saturday? pg&e have committed to improving their infrastructure and

wildfire mitigation plans, but it's anticipated that these upgrades will take many years and billions of dollars to complete. and guess who pays for all that? the pg&e consumer. they charge us not to burn us down. and until that's all in place, one of pg&e's primary wildfire mitigation strategies is just shut the power off. because it's hard for power lines to start a fire if there's no power. so pg&e does rolling blackouts regardless of the fact that some people need electricity in order to, you know, survive. >> you're experiencing these massive power shutoffs. they're supposed to be a last resort, but pg&e is using them too much as a first resort because it's so cheap. >> and if you're not upset enough yet, i should mention that pg&e is a privately owned public utility that generates about $20 billion in revenue annually and through all of this it still pays out dividends to shareholders.

my brain again. >> people need to reach out to the governor, through their elected assembly member, to their elected senators, and demand that the utility companies be held accountable. >> yeah, i'd say holding pg&e accountable is the least we can do. not everyone is as hard on pg&e as me. pg&e? >> fall guy. >> fall guy? >> yeah. >> you think there is too much blame on pg&e? >> yeah. >> okay. >> because pg&e didn't come up with the policy to put out every fire, and they didn't let the forestlands get totally out of balance. >> so the fire mace start with them. but if we were doing a better job of taking care of this land, the fires would not spread this way. >> right. >> the wildfires in california are just an example of what has gone on all over the country. big problems that are out of control that are made worse by american capitalism, the belief that science is just another opinion, that climate change isn't real, and maybe most importantly, that instead of

learning from the indigenous people of this land, the united states attempted to wipe them and their knowledge out. this type of thinking is not just a california problem. it isn't just a fire problem. these problems stretch from california to the new york island. and if we don't figure it out, this land will burn with you and me. the first time i saw an orca it was quite unexpected. quite a large group was hunting. ♪ ♪