“I said, ‘I’m not going to die today.’ I said, ‘Today is not my day,’” a young girl tells the camera just a few minutes into the Netflix documentary “Fire in Paradise.” She can’t be over 10 years old, yet the way she articulates her experience escaping a raging wildfire makes her seem older. What she says is raw and heartbreaking, and the grit she shows continues for the rest of the documentary’s approximately 40–minute run.
“Fire in Paradise” is a short documentary that tells the story of one fateful day in Paradise, California. On Nov. 8, 2018, a devastating wildfire named “Camp Fire” almost completely destroyed the Northern California town of Paradise. The documentary takes viewers through the events of the day in chronological order, mostly focusing on the harrowing ordeal of evacuation. Evacuation was not an option in Paradise, California, resulting in gridlock traffic while the fire raged on both sides of the residents’ escape route.