PARADISE, Calif. _ Policing a town empty of people and absent of crime was never part of Officer Perry Walters' training.
Before fire leveled the town of Paradise, Calif., the calls that crackled over Walters' radio were familiar to every American cop _ domestic violence, disturbing the peace, drugs, burglary, vandalism.
But then came the frantic battle to evacuate amid an apocalyptic inferno. Twice on the morning of Nov. 8, Walters was trapped with terrified residents as flames closed in around them.
Now, he patrols the streets in the eerie isolation of a zone still strictly off-limits to almost everyone, looking out for looters but not seeing a soul. Deprived of familiar landmarks, he sometimes overshoots a turn.
Always in the background, like an alarm that won't shut off, is the acrid odor of things that were not meant to burn.
Walters' home, down the mountain, was unscathed. Of the Paradise Police Department's 20 sworn officers, eight lost their homes.
Yet they continued to work, becoming eyewitnesses for residents desperate to know about homes, neighbors, pets.
More often than not, the news was bad. Officers' cellphones filled with photos of rubble that they snapped for residents who could not enter the fire zone but needed to see what had become of their homes.
Some officers found human remains, reduced to bits of vertebra and skull.
The fire took the lives of at least 88 people, with hundreds still missing.
Walters, a father of three, choked up recalling a brief conversation with his wife as he implored residents to flee their homes.
"I told her I was scared, but I was going to be OK. I told her it wasn't my time. I wasn't going to leave."
