It's this part of California's version of the Santa Ana winds of Southern California, or the Diablo winds of the Bay Area. It's part of the rhythms of California, as high pressure in the Great Basin seeks a way to send wind down to low pressure areas toward the California coast.
California fire officials knew #Paradise was at risk. A 2005 state document warned that the greatest risk to Paradise was an "East Wind driven fire that originates above the communities and blows downhill through developed areas" — which exactly happened on Nov. 8. 
This infrared image shows what happened — strong winds from the northeast, funneled through the Feather River Canyon, whipped a fire northeast of town and brought a rainstorm of embers into town, following the well-worn path of wind through the Concow Basin into Paradise.
An @latimes investigation I worked with @paigestjohn & @JosephSerna found that the destruction of this Northern California town was entirely predictable.
"Paradise ignored repeated warnings of the risk its residents faced, crafted no plan to evacuate the area all at once, entrusted public alerts to a system prone to fire, and did not sound citywide orders to flee even as a hail of fire rained down." — latimes.com/local/californ…
Paradise was also doomed by its maze of haphazard lanes and dead-end roads that paid no heed to escape. Five people died on a street with no outlet.
And the fire moved so quickly that many were forced to abandon their cars as embers transformed Paradise into a firestorm. Here's a map of where vehicles were abandoned on public roads and later ordered towed by the California Highway Patrol.
Take a look at our story, in which there's a lesson of the disaster that can happen when officials plan for the disaster they can handle, but not for the one they can't. latimes.com/local/californ…
Thanks to @gaufre, @Carolyn_Cole, @KelliJoSullivan, @RStjohn_latimes, David Bowman, Paul Ybarrando and @palewire for their teamwork on this story.
.@paigestjohn and @JosephSerna were indefatigable on this story; I am proud to work with them. And thanks to @jackfleonard and @shelbygrad for their edits and support of this story.
