【Kalakal (2025)】

On the morning of November 8,Kalakal (2025) 2018, a fire broke out in Butte County, California.

It appeared minor at first — small, far away from neighboring towns, and moving at a standard rate. It was peak fire season, and given California's notoriously dry and windy climate, nothing about this blaze seemed out of the ordinary.

Over the next hours and days, however, that fire — officially named the "Camp Fire" for its place of origin — would ravage 153,336 acres, cause $16.5 billion of damage, and kill 85 people. It was the deadliest wildfire to ever hit California, and the most costly natural disaster of 2018.

It can be difficult to comprehend devastation that widespread. But in Netflix's Fire in Paradise, a 40-minute documentary chronicling the Camp Fire nearly one year later, the destruction is made painfully evident. From the first spark to ongoing recovery efforts, the timeline of this tragedy is told entirely by the people who lived it. Present day interviews with first responders and survivors are intercut with smartphone videos, news stories, and other footage from that fateful day in 2018.

"I wish I would have grabbed my cats," says volunteer firefighter Ray Johnson, choking back tears as he shovels ash from the lot where his house once stood. "They meant a lot to my wife."

Johnson is one of many survivors struggling to reconcile the past with the present. His wife, Jennifer, says it feels like grieving "a death of the life that we had."

That sentiment is echoed by countless other residents and first responders, all mourning the loss of their town, eerily known as Paradise. According to them, the place roughly 26,000 people called home became a living nightmare in a matter of moments.

It's a feeling that resonates with nearly every frame, as Fire in Paradise weaves together half a dozen different, but painfully similar storylines of loss. Each is heart-breaking in its own right, but when combined with the film's relentless pacing, they become catastrophic.

Two teachers recall spending six hours on a school bus with their students, convinced that they would die attempting to escape. Firefighters describe pulling reluctant evacuees from their homes, desperately trying to explain the peril they were all in. One mother remembers hiding under a blanket with her child and puppy for hours, out of options and praying that the fire would somehow spare their lives.

It's devastating footage, made uniquely powerful by the context in which it is premiering. As wildfires ravage northern and southern California this week, thousands remain displaced, without power, and otherwise in fear for their safety. It's all part of an escalating pattern, one Fire in Paradise warns could spell the end of life as we know it in the Golden State.

"I'm living half of the year being at war," says Cal Fire Captain Sean Norman, emphasizing the role climate change plays in fire spread. "It most certainly is not normal, and I want it to stop being normal."

Directors Drea Cooper and Zackary Canepari reiterate that sentiment in the film's production notes.

"It's so important that we all recognize that climate change is a very real threat — not just to California or the United States, but to the world," says Cooper.

"If you look at the last five years alone, we've had some of the largest fires in California history. And that means big questions are going to have to be asked and answered about rebuilding places that suffer from climate change-related disasters like [the Camp Fire.]"

The final act of the film underlines this message, flipping through the names of dozens of devastating fires that have hit California within the last year. It's a brief graphic, but an exceptionally powerful one — emphasizing both urgency and consequence.

Whether you see Fire in Paradiseas a cautionary tale, wake-up call, or simply great storytelling, it is paramount that you do see it. This short, exquisitely rendered documentary reflects on a threat that seems poised to strike again at any moment, in a time where a lack of information is protecting no one. It happened then, and it can happen now — all it takes is one spark.

Fire in Paradiseis now streaming on Netflix.