PARADISE, Calif. _ The smoke has cleared and the bodies have been buried. Demolition crews have hauled off millions of tons of charred homes and cars from the red dirt lots that were once thick with ponderosa pines.
A year after the Camp fire destroyed almost the entire town of Paradise, Calif., there are signs of a rebirth. Twelve houses have been rebuilt and a few hundred more are in the offing. Businesses are reopening. Classes are in session at Paradise High School, and the opening night of football season brought out more spectators than ever.
But it's a halting recovery, one snagged by challenges that could determine whether the town thrives once again or becomes a ghost of its former self.
It's a path forward that seems to hinge, in part, on a perplexing question: Just how many fire safety measures can Paradise afford?
While many Paradisians seem to recognize that costly changes are needed to establish a safer, more resilient town, some say they will not _ or cannot _ come back if new building codes add too much to construction costs.
And the town needs people to come back. Its population has plunged from 27,000 to about 2,000, and scores of residents have dispersed across California and the United States.
So every potential tweak is weighed carefully, with the still-raw emotion and financial constraints of residents always at the front of mind. Some fire safety proposals have been thrown out, and many other potential plans hang in the balance.
"You have a window where you can get people in your community back," said Councilman Mike Zuccolillo. "If you make it so difficult to build, they'll just leave."
