Sacramento, Calif., Nov 27, 2018 / 18:52 pm
After 17 days of scorching more than 150,000 acres in northern California, the Camp Fire - one of the states deadliest and most destructive wildfires on record - has finally been contained.
The fire killed at least 88 people, but that number is expected to rise as nearly 300 people are still unaccounted for. It destroyed some 14,000 residencies and left the town of Paradise, in Butte County, essentially non-existent.
Paradise sits in the northern part of the Diocese of Sacramento. Before the fire was even fully contained, the department of schools for the diocese announced that it would be offering free tuition at its Catholic schools for any Butte County students displaced by the wildfire.
"Paradise it not that small of a city. It has - or had - nearly 30,000 inhabitants, so the fire left around 4,000 school kids displaced, without any schools to go back to," Lincoln Snyder, executive director of schools for the Diocese of Sacramento, told CNA.