INFLAMED

A struggle to save California retirees from a massive wildfire leads to allegations of misconduct by an elder-care corporation in Belden and Gullixson’s gripping exposé.

The authors (journalism professor Belden and former Santa Rosa Press Democrat editorial director Gullixson) recap the 2017 Tubbs Fire in California’s Napa and Sonoma Counties, one of a group of wildfires that killed 44 people and destroyed thousands of homes and businesses. They focus on the ordeal of two adjacent retirement communities in Santa Rosa—the Varenna apartment complex and the Villa Capri assisted living facility—both owned by a company called Oakmont Senior Living. The two residences were uniquely vulnerable to the fire that swept down on them on the night of October 8, fed by bone-dry weather and tropical storm–force winds. Both were full of aged, incapacitated people, many of them stranded on upper floors and unable to climb down stairs when the power went out and elevators shut down, and many of them suffering from dementia. Worse, the authors contend, evacuation efforts by Oakmont managers were slow and confused, company buses went unused because keys were lost, and, after managers and staff drove some residents to safety, they failed to return for the rest because of miscommunications and roadblocks. It therefore fell to family members, who raced to the residences, to improvise evacuations. Later chapters cover the ensuing lawsuits and investigations of Oakmont, which was accused of negligence, elder abuse, and having no evacuation plan and an inadequately trained staff. There’s cowardice in this dramatic narrative, but at heart it’s about ordinary people displaying extraordinary grace under extreme pressure, all conveyed in intense, atmospheric prose (“The wind howled as it pushed smoke inside, and embers blew through the open window, landing on the curtains, carpet and decor. It was then, through the dim, spectral light, R. J. saw a figure lying in bed”). The result is a moving re-creation of a nightmarish disaster that tested the character of all those in its path.

A harrowing saga that pits corporate pusillanimity against dogged courage under the most difficult circumstances.