The brick and mortar location for SkywayTools.com is located in Chico, California, which is the neighboring town of Paradise that was hit by the Camp Fire November 8, 2018.  There is a 4 lane highway joining the two called “The Skyway,” which once had breathtaking views of a canyon bordering one side of the drive up the ridge to Paradise.  The reason the town was called Paradise is that when Lt. Fremont was visiting the area it was a hot summer in Chico and the men were boiling.  They drove up into the hills above the town into the forest and Fremont said, “Ah, this is Paradise!”

Through the years the town had been a favorite retirement spot for many former Bay Area residents.  The original Skyway Tools was located on the Skyway in Paradise.  The tiny store soon began to sell tools to not only the Paradise locals, but contractors and mechanics from Chico and Oroville, eventually moving to the larger town of Chico.

On November 8th, owner Doug Gillis left the store early in the morning and his wife Sherry was there alone.  The fire began at 6:30am and by 6:45 the couple were already aware of the fire, having seen the enormous plumes of smoke in the sky from the upstairs offices of the tool store.  Little did they know what a catastrophe awaited that small town.  Within an hour of the onset of the fire, residents of Paradise were fighting for their lives.  Because the tool store is so centrally located, the police and emergency personnel quickly closed the road directly in front of the tool store, blocking anyone from coming or going as the cars poured down the hill fleeing the fire.

By 9am the parking lot of the store was black with ash and you couldn’t even see the markings for the parking places.  The sky was so dark with smoke that at 10am it looked like it was eight o’clock at night.  Hundreds of people came to the store that day.  Many were terribly traumatized and shaken.  We had a lot of people coming in because they had run from their homes, grabbed their pets, and had no water, no leash, or their pet had an accident in the car.  We did everything we could to help them that day, often just giving them a hug as they came in the front door.

Doug Gillis could not get back to the tool store.  It took 3 1/2 hours to drive what normally took five minutes, because the traffic was so backed up throughout the county.  He finally got back at 9pm that night, hungry and worried.  The couple had lived in Paradise for 21 years, selling their home up there in 2013 due to the Recession, but had too many friends and acquaintances to count.  Friends have now been scattered all over the West Coast.  54,000 people were displaced by the fire – 14,000 of them moved to Chico.  Chico has now become a town where you can’t find a room to rent, an apartment or a house to buy or rent.  Many of the employees in Chico lived up in Paradise and that has greatly affected many of the businesses in Chico.

85 people died – burned alive in their homes.  One 95 year old woman got out on her front porch and the garbage truck spotted her as he was fleeing the area.  He turned around, roared into her driveway, picked her up, threw her up into the passenger seat, and got them both out of there and to safety.  Hundreds, if not thousands of family pets were burned.  Many of the people barely escaped with their lives as the embers fell upon their cars when they fled the fire.  One of our family friends was driving away from the fire when his car caught on fire itself.  He exited the car and began running down the road.  Thank God he was picked up by another motorist and saved.

There are many families who had their home burned to the ground, their parents’ home burned to the ground, their grandparents’ home burned to the ground, their aunts and uncles’ homes burned to the ground – and where were they to go for help?  It has been a terrible ordeal and for many people, the tragedy has not ended with the fire.  Thousands are left to pick up the pieces of their lives, everything they owned burned, all they were left with were the clothes on their backs.  We see many of the older people who are really struggling, because it has been such an emotional jolt to them to lose everything they ever owned in their 70s or 80s.  Yes, it has been very, very difficult.

We pray for those who have experienced such incredible loss in the Camp Fire and we have hope for the new days ahead that will dawn with the Spring.