Chico, California—After barely getting out of Paradise alive before the Camp Fire turned her town to ash, Patty Saunders, 89, now spends her days and nights in a reclining chair inside the shelter at East Ave Church 16 miles away.
It hurts too much to move. She needs a hip replacement and her legs are swollen. Next to her is a portable commode, and when it’s time to go, nurses and volunteers help her up and hold curtains around her to give her some measure of privacy.
“Never in my life did I think I would end up in a situation like this, but when it’s time to go, you got to go,” Saunders said. Under the circumstances, she is in good spirits, with a rotating cast of people stopping by to chat and take care of her.
Most of the fire victims here are older folks like her. They rest on cots, inflatable beds and recliners in a pop-up community of nearly 200 evacuees displaced by the Camp Fire and an army of volunteers.
The Camp Fire, the deadliest in state history, took ruthless aim at older people. Paradise, the Northern California town erased by fire, was largely a retirement community, with a quarter of the population 65 and older. The fire’s death toll was 81 at last count, and nearly 1,000 people still unaccounted for — most of them seniors. The sheriff’s list of the missing includes many in their 70s and 80s.
Like everyone else in the wildfire’s path, older people fled swiftly, if they escaped at all, often leaving behind medications, wheelchairs, walkers and essential medical equipment.
Altogether, around 50,000 people are thought to have evacuated, now staying in motels, cars, shelters and a makeshift camp at Walmart in Chico. But the elderly refugees often need more support, especially with chronic conditions and infections that incubate and spread in close quarters. Some need dialysis but can’t get it. Others have respiratory illnesses aggravated by smoke. One woman in a Yuba City shelter was recovering from cancer surgery with a stapled wound.