Hardwood Floors Oct/Nov 2019

Wood Stock

Rebuilding in PARADISE By Kjell Nymark

Dillon Moore, an NWFA Certified Sand and Finisher based in Chico, California, felt the impact firsthand and was compelled to do something for his community. Moore reached out to the NWFA to organize installation training in the area to aid in the rebuilding efforts. He wanted to offer an opportunity to retrain people who had lost their homes and jobs. Once the rebuild of Paradise begins, there will be a high demand for construction workers. Dillon wanted to ensure that when the flooring goes back into homes, they are installed by a trained workforce. The training was hosted by Carpet One in Chico withMoore, Avi Hadad, Roger Barker and me as instructors. The class was attended by some of Moore’s employees and a few other contractors. Materials were supplied byMaxwell Hardwood Flooring, Somerset Wood Products Inc., Fortifiber Building Systems Group, Titebond, and Loba-Wakol LLC. The three-day course dealt with common installation practices, borders, and patterned floor installation. On the last day of class, we took a trip out to Paradise so the visiting instructors could see the area. Traffic had to keep moving to accommodate all the machinery and dump trucks that were involved in the cleanup, so there were not many places to stop and get out. It didn’t matter where you drove around Paradise, just about every home was completely burned out. The area was very lush with lots of tall trees between each of the houses.

A campfire that broke out in November 2018 near the town of Paradise, California, turned out to be the deadliest wildfire in the United States in a century. The fire killed 86 people, destroyed more than 19,000 buildings, and tens of thousands of people were displaced. The cleanup is still ongoing, and it will take a long time to remove everything that was left behind from the evacuation.

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