One huge fire was caused by a spark set off by a man with a hammer, working on a fence post in a field of dry vegetation. Another began at a backyard barbecue. A 2007 fire on Santa Catalina Island was ignited by workers cutting metal wires with a torch. As investigators try to determine what started the most devastating wildfire in California history, which killed at least 56 people, the beginning premise is that human beings through their mistakes, or their toys, tools and technologies were probably behind it. But looking into the cause of a fire, which can take months of painstaking work, also means rolling back the clock to a moment and to a spot that, like most of the town of Paradise, has been reduced to ash.
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