美国国家公共电台 NPR Thousands Of Fire Evacuees To Spend The Holiday Without Homes

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Thousands Of Fire Evacuees¹ To Spend The Holiday Without Homes

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Many people in Northern California are away from home this holiday week because their homes were destroyed by the Camp Fire. NPR's Elise Hu reports on how some are spending Thanksgiving.

ELISE HU, BYLINE²: Roxanne Peters (ph) currently lives out of her pickup³ truck after her home went up in flames. She was supposed to be preparing dinner tomorrow and enjoying it with her friends.

ROXANNE PETERS: I was celebrating at two different houses. (Laughter). You know? We were invited at two different places, and then I was cooking to bring, like, potluck. You know?

HU: And where are those houses now?

PETERS: They're burned, both of them.

HU: The scale of the fire's destruction is so spread out that very little of the towns of Paradise, Magalia and Concow remain. The fire scorched⁴ 230 square miles so far, an area the size of Chicago.

PETERS: Well, I'll be giving thanks this year that we made it out alive.

HU: So many evacuees have fled to nearby Chico, prompting local businesses to try and give them a place to exhale⁵. Breanna Fischer (ph) manages the Buffalo⁶ Wild Wings near the disaster recovery center.

BREANNA FISCHER: When you see them come in, they have ash on their clothes or their face has soot⁷ on it because they - you don't know what they were doing.

HU: She says customers have streamed in with so many different stories of survival.

FISCHER: You're, like, heartbroken. Like, you can hear my voice. It's, like - makes you sad.

HU: The restaurant is usually closed on Thanksgiving Day, but tomorrow, she and the other managers decided⁸ not just to stay open but to host a free feast for hundreds of fire survivors⁹.

FISCHER: It's all on us. This is a family event, basically.

HU: Inside the giant walk-in freezers in the back, 40 giant turkeys are lined up waiting to be deep fried.

FISCHER: We're going to test one tonight. See how long it's going to take to cook, and that's what it's going to be.

HU: Have you ever fried 40 turkeys at once?

FISCHER: No way. I've done one. It was crazy.

HU: The restaurant can seat 240 in all, and it's accepting reservations until the place reaches capacity. Elsewhere in town, the nonprofit group World Central Kitchen, founded by celebrity¹⁰ chef Jose Andres, is teaming with the town of Paradise, Chico State University and the Sierra Nevada Beer brewery¹¹, which is headquartered here, to make 15,000 Thanksgiving meals tomorrow.

ELAINE KRAMER: Yes. It's definitely a huge undertaking¹².

HU: Elaine Kramer is associate dining director at Chico State, which is turning over two of its dining halls to any evacuees who show up.

KRAMER: Maybe just to make somebody feel better, even if it's for a very short amount of time.

HU: Volunteers from the community will help with serving the food. And the volunteer sign-up filled up within hours. At Buffalo Wild Wings, all the staff will also work for free. Manager Breanna Fischer says their focus is giving fire victims some semblance¹³ of a normal holiday.

FISCHER: Where are they supposed to go? They don't really have a home so it's kind of, like, our responsibility to do it.

HU: So many are temporarily homeless, but tomorrow, they won't be hungry. Elise Hu, NPR News, Chico, Calif.