The tragic story of the Camp Fire in 2018 almost replayed itself last Wednesday night, when the single road in and out of Cohasset, a town about 12 miles away from Paradise as the crow flies, was blocked by a wall of flames.

Astonishingly, officials in Butte County have failed in the last six years to anticipate a second tragic wildfire scenario like the one that happened in Paradise, specifically how that could easily play out in a similarly tucked-away, Sierra foothills town with only a single road in and out of it, Cohasset.

Cohasset is a fraction of the size of Paradise with just around 850 residents. But at least one person, who escaped the flames of the Camp Fire six years ago and relocated nearby, has been ringing alarm bells about the single-road situation to no avail.

As the Chronicle reports, it turns out there is another way out of Cohasset, which is to drive north on what becomes a privately owned logging road that's typically blocked with a locked gate. That road is controlled by Sierra Pacific Industries, the lumber operation that is the largest private landowner in the United States.

Thankfully, on Tuesday night, an accommodation was made, and lives were saved. After hundreds of residents of Cohasset as well as a sheriff's escort were turned away by firefighters from evacuating out their one open route, Cal Fire was able to get a representative from Sierra Pacific (SPI), to unlock the gates and escort the caravan of residents back out to Highway 32 — the long way down a rough dirt road not meant for much traffic.

This all happened around 9:10 pm, as Cal Fire and Butte County reps confirm to the Chronicle.

Butte County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Megan McMann confirms the gate situation in clinical terms — given the lives at stake.

"There was a need to unlock them,” McMann tells the Chronicle. “And I don’t know of a requirement or agreement. These roads aren’t designed for public use but they were used during this evacuation and we appreciate the partnership with SPI and the assistance."

It seems that SPI has been keeping the roads gated in order to deter vandals, potential accidental firestarts, and deter off-roading by recreational ATV owners and the like.

"SPI considers several wildfire risk factors when closing its lands, including increasing temperatures, dry vegetation, low moisture levels in fuels, and long-range weather forecasts for the region," the company said in a statement.

Chico resident Doug Laurie, who lost his home to the Camp Fire six years ago, tells the Chronicle that he's been sounding alarms about the dangers of Cohasset Road and the potential for a repeat of the Paradise tragedy. He even took a Chronicle reporter to tour the road and see its dangers back in 2020. The article noted how Ponderosa Way, an 800-mile-long cut through the forest, once served as an effective firebreak — it was, at the time it was cut during the Great Depression, the largest firebreak in the world.

The situation of being beholden to one private company during an event like this, Laurie correctly argues, is untenable. He likens it to being "in a movie theater and the doors are locked and the theater catches fire... you don’t want to wait for an usher from another theater to open the doors for you to escape.”

As one Cohasset resident, Linda Forrester, tells the Chronicle, "I just think this is a problem where we wait for the tragedy... Nobody gives a shit. They just don’t want us living in the foothills."

In the end, around 100 to 150 people were part of the caravan that escaped through SPI's land back to Highway 32, and to Chico.

Cal Fire earlier confirmed that "an island" of a few dozen homes within Cohasset survived, but a large number did not. In total, Cal Fire has confirmed that 358 structures have been destroyed to date in the Park Fire, which has now burned over 389,000 acres. The fire is in four counties now, and is 18% contained.

No deaths occurred in Cohasset, as far as reporting goes so far, and there have not been any fatalities confirmed in the Park Fire to date.

Related: Park Fire Arson Suspect Charged, Investigators Say He Was Drunk at Time of Fire's Start

Photo by Brad Forrester, via the Chronicle