KenKen® is a registered trademark of Nextoy, LLC. © 2019 http://www.KENKEN.com. All rights reserved.companies have steadily raised premiums or
even ceased to renew policies in many fi re-
prone areas of California, as payouts for wild-
fi re claims will now exceed $10 billion for the
second year in a row. Two months after the
Camp Fire, PG&E fi led for bankruptcy pro-
tection. Then it announced, along with two of
California’s other major utilities, that it would
be expanding its Public Safety Power Shutoff
program this year. The company is now pre-
pared to preventively cut electricity to a larger
share of its infrastructure — high-voltage wires,
as well as lower-voltage ones — and across its
entire range. Nearly fi ve and a half million cus-
tomers could be subject to shutdowns at one
time or another this summer, ‘‘which is all of our
customer base,’’ a PG&E vice president, Aaron
Johnson, told me: every single one. ‘‘With the
increasing fi re risk that we’re seeing in the
state,’’ he added, ‘‘and the increasing extreme
weather, this program is going to be with us for
some time to come.’’
In California, the prospect of life without
electricity from time to time — a signature con-
venience of the 20th century — has apparently
become an unavoidable, even sensible, feature
of the 21st.
❈ ❈ ❈How did it end? With smoke — with colos-
sal shapes of smoke gurgling out of Paradise
behind Laczko and Fisher as they glided down-
hill, and with a stoic fi gure somewhere inside
the smoke, single-mindedly grinding through
neighborhoods in his bulldozer, music blaring,
chasing after fl ames as they stampeded uphill,
but mostly failing to get ahead of them as heand every other fi refi ghter labored to keep fi re
away from structures that seemed, in the end,
determined to burn.
The houses had revealed themselves: They
were just another crop of tightly clustered and
immaculately dried-out dead trees, a forest that
had grown, been felled and milled, then re -
arranged sideways and hammered together by
clever human beings who, over time, came to
forget the volatile ecosystem that spawned that
material and still surrounded it now. Some of that
wood most likely lived 100 years or more and had
been lumber for almost as long: a storehouse of
energy that was now bursting open, joining with
the burning forests around the Ridge into a single,
furious outpouring of smoke — ominous because
it was dark and high enough to challenge the sun,
but also because it was largely composed of car-
bon: an estimated 3.6 million metric tons of green-
house gases that, as seems to happen at least once
every fi re season lately, was more than enough to
obliterate the progress made by all of California’s
climate-change policies in a typical year.
How did it end? With smoke — with smoke
that signaled the world that Fisher knew at the
beginning of the day was gone and that surely
signaled something just as grave for the rest of us.
Within hours, and for nearly two weeks after that,
smoke would swamp the lucid blue sky over the
valley where Fisher was now heading; where, for
weeks, she would be afraid to be left alone and,
for months, refuse to drive, terrifi ed by the sensa-
tion of slowing down in traffi c, even momentarily;
where she found herself repeatedly checking the
sky to make sure it wasn’t black; where she kept
showering but swore she still smelled the smoke
on her skin. And before long, the smoke had fl oat-
ed all the way to the coast, where it forced the city
of San Francisco to close its schools.
How did it end? It hasn’t. It won’t.53Paradise
(Continued from Page 51)Fill the grid with digits so as not to repeat a digit in any row or column, and so that the digits within each heavily outlined
box will produce the target number shown, by using addition, subtraction, multiplication or division, as indicated in the box.
A 5x5 grid will use the digits 1–5. A 7x7 grid will use 1–7.KENKEN
KenKen® is a registered trademark of Nextoy, LLC. © 2019 http://www.KENKEN.com. All rights reserved.SPELLING BEEMarathon (3 points). Also: Amaranth, annotator, honor,manhattan, manna, manor, manta, mantra, maroon,, north, ottoman, rattan, matron, month, moron, narratorroman, romano, tantra, tartan, thorn. If you found otherlegitimate dictionary words in the beehive, feel free toinclude them in your score.ANAGRAMMAR
KENKENVOWEL-MINDED SIXY SUDOKUAnswers to puzzles of 7.28.19Answers to puzzle on Page 52LAMPS BERG STOP THEFT
OZ ARK LMAO CHAR HE L I O
REKEY ATMOSPHERE ERROL
DR E AMON I B E R I A NAMEONE
EARMARKS EGOS RUBA I YAT
BLASTFROMTHEPAST
CE L L TA I OCT K I SS
COT E MAR SH I S A I D S I TH
ACH FORTHEMOS T PART NAY
ROY A LWE WOO L L EOP ARD
BALROG SONDHE IM XPR I ZE
MOLTED AP I ECE
CHR I S TOPHE RMAR LOWE
TAHOE KARAOKEBAR ARRAY
SCALDS XMEN STANCE
ACME PR IMROS E PATH P I CA
RIP RODEO GUSTO ERR
IDA MIXEDMETAPHORS PEZ
NEGRON I S AXED E P I PHYTE
ANN E T T E NA T E SNAR L E R
STENTS AMES GREEDO- Tinsel, tonsil 2. Pearly, poorly
- Cavort, covert 4. Rattan,
rotten 5. Flaunt, fluent 6. Carrel,
corral 7. Raisin, reason 8. Petite,
potato 9. Demean, domain - Silica, solace 11. Crawdad,
crowded 12. Revelry, rivalry 13.
Antacid, enticed 14. Canteen,
contain 15. Parasol, perusal 16.
Beadier, boudoir 17. Parolees,
perilous 18. Sauciest, seacoast
CRYPTIC CROSSWORD
ACROSS: 1. anag. shop said
5. s(the – h)ins 9. res(train)t
11. palindrome 12. s(p )ycam
(rev. Macy’s) 13. pa + ram
+ our 15. che(wov)er (rev.
vow) 16. a + but 19. hidden
neurologist 20. p(l)othole
(anag. the loop) 23. s(naked- d)oil 24. s(K + et)ch.
- O + live 28. anag. nicest
day 29. ten(D)t + O 30. ches(sse)t (rev. ess)
DOWN: 1. d(U)ress 2. s(ass)y 3. st(r )eamer 4. first letters,
A Study in Scarlet) 6. T + urban 7. intro + uble (anag. blue) - anag. rosy trio 10. tr(ave. + st.)y 14. too(L)k + its 15. car
- nation 17. beas(por)t (anag. pro) 18. co(ckpi)ts (anag.
pick) 21. homophone dessert 22. th(re)at 25. rev. smart
- finch – f
D I SHSOAPUATS S TE I NSUNO
RESTRA INT ROTOR
ESESRBROSPYCAMPARAMOUR
SMTVNUI
BAROSCLYCHEWOV E R ABUT
EURO P LOTHOL E
ANDK Y CSNAKEO I L SKE TCHT
PTST I PRR
OL I VE SYND I CATE
RORTENDTO CHESSSETC TMAFill the grid with digits so as not to repeat a digit in any row or column, and so that the digits within each heavily outlined
box will produce the target number shown, by using addition, subtraction, multiplication or division, as indicated in the box.
A 5x5 grid will use the digits 1–5. A 7x7 grid will use 1–7.