A California man has been forced to watch two of his homes burn to the ground in the past six years due to raging wildfires which also killed his cat.
Rick Pero’s property in Forest Ranch has been devastated by Park Fire, the ginormous blaze currently tearing through Butte, Plumas, Shasta, and Tehama counties.
But it’s deja-vu for Pero, who had to leave his previous home in Paradise six years earlier when Camp Fire ravaged the area in November 2018.
The two-week blaze was the deadliest wildfire in California’s history, killing 85 people and destroying more than 18,000 structures, including the home where Pero lived with his wife. Their cat sadly did not survive the recent inferno.
‘There was a chair that he would love to hide under because he was a little shy. They sure enough found that he was probably curled up there,’ Pero told Action News Now as he recalled how first responders found his beloved pet, called Catmandu.
California man Rick Pero (pictured left) has revealed that he was forced to leave his home after his house was destroyed by raging wildfires on two separate occasions
‘There was a chair that he would love to hide under because he was a little shy. They sure enough found that he was probably curled up there,’ Pero told Action News Now as he recalled how first responders found his beloved pet, called Catmandu
A California man has revealed that he has been forced to leave his home on two separate occasions over the past six years after it was destroyed by raging wildfires
‘We got to let him go and get closure for that and appreciate the years that we had him and now he’s at peace.’
‘He had a pretty crazy life,’ Pero said, adding that they also had another cat called Riley.
‘Both our cats were rescue cats and he had been found under Scotty’s out there and we found him at the Humane Society and he just hugged us. He was family.
‘Neither my wife or I had kids so he was our youngest little fur-kid, our fur-boy.’
The couple is being supported by disaster response nonprofit, Team Rubicon, who are helping them dig any surviving possessions like jewelry out of the carnage.
Pero said that along with all their neighbors, their home was also completely destroyed by Camp Fire.
‘There was a chair that he would love to hide under because he was a little shy. They sure enough found that he was probably curled up there,’ Pero told Action News Now as he recalled how first responders found his beloved pet, called Catmandu
The Park Fire , which started in Chico on Wednesday, has developed into an uncontrollable 307,368-acre behemoth as it bulldozes through two counties in the Northern California
Pero revealed he is considering leaving the state for safer territory.
And they’re not the only ones.
A new report shows how climate change is set to reshape American cities over the next few years as people increasingly abandon flood, heat and wildfire ‘danger zones’ like northern California for calmer climes.
Scientists told DailyMail.com that several cities are ‘slowly dying’13694835 due to residents fleeing popular waterside destinations which are prone to flooding – with many metros predicted to look ‘dramatically different’ in just a few decades.
Areas of Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Providence and Las Vegas are named as the top metro regions forecast to experience the biggest proportional exodus due to flood risk.
Meanwhile, relatively ‘safe zones’ such as Jefferson County in Louisville, Kentucky, are seeing an influx of new residents.
Dr Jeremy Porter, who is head of climate implications at First Street Foundation which produced the peer-reviewed report, told DailyMail.com that people are increasingly basing their relocations on climate factors.
The US was struck by 23 disasters over an eight month period in 2023, which came at a loss of at least $1 billion each (mapped) – eclipsing the previous annual record of 22 events with a 10-figure price-tag in 2022
‘Over the past five years, people have really started to pay attention to the climate data as something that impacts their moves,’ he said.
Polls back this up. A recent Zillow report found 80 percent of Americans consider climate risks when searching for a new home, while Forbes released a study showing that 30 percent of homeowners say climate change was the reason for their move.
The First Street study identifies America’s top ten ‘climate abandonment areas’ – metro areas where people are leaving in droves due to the increasing risk of climate events disrupting their lives and businesses.
