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MONDAY, JUNE 12, 2023
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VOLUME 172 • ISSUE 66 | $1.00 Grizzly Flat resident Matt Nunley stands in front of one of the first sheds he built for his neighbors who lost their homes to the 2021 Caldor Fire.
SEE OUR AD ON PAGE A8
Special Olympics torch on the way Odin Rasco Staff writer Mountain Democrat Photo by Isaac Streeter
Good Samaritan builds sheds to help Caldor Fire survivors Isaac Streeter Staff writer
M
att Nunley walks down to his mill through the maze of charred and fallen trees littering his 3-acre property in Grizzly Flat. Nearby stands his drying shed, where freshly cut two-by-fours sit stacked neatly, ready for the next building project. Just across the street is he and his wife Olivia’s
home, a 1980s prefabricated house that survived the devastating 2021 Caldor Fire. The Nunleys lost two sheds that sat on the peripherals of their property, where the trees that run up next to their home are half burned, showing just how close the fire came. Olivia said patches of shingles on their roof melted but that was the extent of Caldor’s damage to their home.
The northern California Special Olympics torch will pass through Placerville Tuesday, June 13, in the hands of a first responder as the flame makes its way to Santa Clara University. Special Olympics organizers in Northern California are marking the 26th anniversary of the Law Enforcement Torch Run, and El Dorado County agencies will be participating for the first time this year. Officers and employees from the Placerville Police Department, El Dorado County Sheriff ’s Office, South Lake Tahoe Police Department, California Highway Patrol, El Dorado County Probation Department, El Dorado County District Attorney’s Office and California State Parks will participate in the torch relay as “Guardians of the Flame.” The torch’s tour through Placerville will see rolling road closures between 11:30 a.m. and noon as PPD Detective Sgt. Luke Gadow, Det. Addison Randall and dispatcher Ava RoserHudspeth carry the flame. The route will begin
n See STORAGE, page A8
n See TORCH, page A7
State Farm drops California home insurance but can the Gold State shore up the market? Ben Christopher and Grace Gedye Calmatters State Farm is making national headlines after its May 26 announcement the company would stop selling new home insurance policies in California. As California’s largest single provider of bundle home insurance policies — the company had 20% of the market in 2021 — the news struck some as the beginning of a fresh emergency, with insurers abandoning a fire and flood ravaged state. But the retraction of California’s biggest home coverage provider is only the latest development in
a wildfire-fueled crisis that has smoldered beneath the surface of the state’s insurance market for years. After the disastrous fires of 2017 and 2018, the number of Californians who were told by their insurer that their policy wouldn’t be renewed jumped up by 42% to almost 235,000 households. The two severe wildfire years wiped out decades of industry profits. Last year, American International Group let thousands of customers know their home insurance policies would not be renewed, and Chubb, a high-end insurer, said it would
The 2022 Mosquito Fire destroyed more than 70 structures in El Dorado and Placer counties.
Photo courtesy of Cal OES
n See INSURANCE, page A6
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