On Thursday, Dana Mack, 26, stood in her in-law’s house, watching her 10-year-old foster daughter Lucy* eat her Thanksgiving meal surrounded by family. She felt grateful but it was also painful — it had been her turn to host Thanksgiving dinner.
The Camp Fire, which burned over 150,000 acres and destroyed more than 18,000 structures in Butte County, California, had forced the Macks, including her husband Tyler, Lucy and her 21-month-old biological child, to evacuate their Chico home.
Their house at the end of Honey Run Road and all their possessions are now gone, burnt, like so many others, to the ground.
Mack’s family is one of a dozen foster families impacted by the Camp Fire in Butte County, which so far has claimed the lives of 88 people with more than 200 still missing. Youth for Change and Youth and Family Programs, two large foster care service providers in the area, lost 11 foster homes and three transition-age housing units, though other foster homes are damaged and one family is still displaced.
For the full story: https://chronicleofsocialchange.org/child-welfare-2/camp-fire/32875
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