"Yeah, per capita, this was an immense disaster for this community."
An immense disaster - that requires a small army for the cleanup. The Boles Fire started September 15th in Weed in Siskiyou County. The 516-acre fire destroyed 157 homes and forced the evacuation of 4,000 people.
"They're working six days a week - 12 hours a day."
And the whole job is unfolding with military precision.
Every scorched lot has been numbered - and by November - every one will be a clean slate.
"It's a system. We take out the asbestos, and contaminated pipes, take that away. Then we get the concrete and recycle that. Then we separate the metal and recycle that. Then we scrape the entire lot. That's the key. The entire lot gets scraped,” says Todd Thalhamer, Operations Chief, CalRecycle.
Yes - someone actually takes out a rake - and levels the ground.
"We tell the crews to clean up the lots so a 3-year-old can walk across it, so what you see behind us is the 3-year-old standard."
"Last couple of steps here - we have to take out the dead trees, do erosion control, then turn it back over to the city and the homeowner for rebuilding."
This part of Northern California is well known for its dislike of most things government, but the locals are impressed with what they're seeing.
"I know we give the feds and the government a hard time, but they're doing an excellent job of cleaning up,” says resident Alexandra Arnett.
Weed resident, 24-year-old Ronald Beau Marshall has been arrested in connection with starting the fire. He remains in Siskiyou County Jail on $250,000 bail. He was booked into the jail on a felony warrant with charges of arson of an inhabited structure or property, arson to forest land, and arson of property to another.
