Residents work all night, risk lives to keep fire from town

Helltown residents worked through the night to
save their town. (Photo by Dharma LaRocca)

The New York Times offers a harrowing account of residents' battle to save Helltown, a small, tight-knit community just northwest of Paradise, the town destroyed by the Camp Fire still raging through Northern California.

When the fire began burning in Paradise, lifelong Helltown resident Dharma Tony LaRocca and  four other people, decided to act. They spent all night digging fire breaks around the town with an excavator and putting out hotspots in the dirt with shovels, Jill Cowan reports.

When friends relieved them the next day, said LaRocca, 47, his boots were melted and holes were burned into his sweatshirt. The whole canyon had burned, but "Helltown was the only sliver that survived," LaRocca told Cowan.

California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesperson Scott McLean said he understood why LaRocca and his friends did what they did, but cautioned others against doing the same, saying that this year's fires have been faster and fiercer than usual: "It’s not advisable — you will die."