PARADISE, Calif. — For the first time since it was destroyed in the 2018 Camp Fire, Paradise’s history museum has an exhibit for the public to see, one that elicits powerful emotions.
Inside an old auto transmission shop being converted into the new Gold Nugget Museum, a group of supporters shared a potluck to mark the milestone. Tucked in the corner of the museum’s lobby is a glass box holding two metal objects: the hooks from the PG&E power line that sparked the fire.
“I hope that it emphasizes to [visitors] the unnecessary-ness of the event,” Tamara Maxey, museum collection specialist, said. “That it didn’t have to happen.”
One of the cast-iron C-hooks on display has its tip snapped off. That’s the one that broke in a windstorm on the morning of Nov. 8, 2018, dropping a live high-voltage line and sparking the fire.
Next to it sits a hook from another part of the same power line. It shows a groove cut nearly all the way through the metal, slowly cut by 97 years of swaying in the windy Feather River Canyon.
Butte County prosecutors gave the hooks to the museum after using them as evidence to convict PG&E of 84 counts of felony involuntary manslaughter, the largest homicide committed by any corporation in the United States.
The hook that caused the deaths of at least 84 people and destroyed 14,000 family homes is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.
The museum intends to preserve them so everyone has the opportunity to see the cause of the fire up close, both for the sake of healing and to help future generations learn firsthand what happened.
The museum quietly put out the display during the week of April 4, which has been seen by only a handful of people who happened to stop into the lobby.
Maxey says some were fascinated by the objects. Others felt stunned.
“There was a lady who came in today and when I told her [what the hooks were] she visibly kind of deflated,” Maxey said. “Everybody had their own experience of the Camp Fire and everybody’s going to have their own reaction to this material.”
The exhibit is among the first steps in a unique project: rebuilding a history museum from scratch. The fire destroyed more than 98 percent of the museum’s collection.
“There wasn’t time to do anything except to escape," Mark Thorp, museum executive director, said. “We lost 90 percent of our town, it is a reflection of that.”
The museum has a multiphase plan to reface the old transmission shop with an historic look and to re-open “Nuggetville,” a Gold Rush themed tiny town for kids.
The museum has already received many donated artifacts and is happy to hear from people willing to give objects of historical significance to the Paradise area or that exemplify the region’s mining and timber history.
Reopening the museum in earnest will take a long time, but the Camp Fire hook exhibit is open to the public in the museum lobby from noon - 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Click here for location information and how to support the Gold Nugget Museum.
GO DEEPER: This story is part of ABC10's FIRE - POWER - MONEY reporting project. If you have a tip that could reveal more about California's crisis with utilities and wildfires, please contact investigative reporter Brandon Rittiman at brittiman@abc10.com.
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