When Christine Poje’s children woke her up the morning of Nov. 8 to see the sunrise, she thought the red sky might portend rain. Red sky in the morning, sailor’s warning. “We could use a storm,” Poje thought, as she got up to cover the firewood with a tarp. California had only officially come out of a three-year drought last year. Much of northern California — including the town of Paradise in Butte County where Poje and her four children had moved to from La Crosse about three months ago — was in the middle of a long dry season. Outside, Poje could hear the sound of ash hitting the pines like rain. It was just after 8 a.m., about 90 minutes after firefighters first responded to reports of a fire in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas.