In many ways, it is as if time has stood still in Paradise. At the abandoned gas station at the entrance to the city, last year's gasoline prices are signposted.

In one of the closed schools is the date when everyone was evacuated on the board: November 8, 2018.

The day the city disappeared.

95 percent of all houses in Paradise burned down in six hours. 85 people though. The fire moved at the rate of a football pitch every eighth of a second.

- Me, my wife and our two children looked out the door and saw that two houses were burning away. While we were standing there it spread to the neighbor. She put the children in the car and went one way to get them to safety. I went to the senior residence where I worked, says Stephen Murray.

He kicked in 18 doors to get as many of the elderly as possible, loaded the car and the van full. He got nothing from his own house except the clothes on his body.

- I had applied to change insurance companies the same week, but it had not come through, we had a four-day gap and that was when the fire occurred, he says.

He was not alone in not having insurance. Many companies did not want to insure houses in the city, considering that the fire risk was high after a previous fire in 2008, and therefore prices were relatively high and many did not let go. The total value of unsecured property that burned down in the city amounts to SEK 40 billion.

- We got a camper donated, which we lived in for ten months, two adults and two children. We could afford to move to an apartment two months ago, says Stephen Murray.

While his own family struggled with where to live, he started a charity. He collects donated items and passes them on to people in greater need. Today he fetches a trailer that one survivor will pass on to another.

- We lived in it for a year but now our new house is finished, so better that someone else gets it, says Debbie Sanders.

The chosen one is Lisa Cervantes, who lived with her husband and one of their children in a very small caravan. When Stephen Murray surprises them but the new caravan cheers on his 10-year-old daughter, Nevaeh.

- Mom, there is a table where I can sit and do my homework!

Half of all school students have disappeared. So do half of all police officers. Five firefighters in the city saw their own homes burn up as they tried to save the city. 11,000 plots for sale.

"It's a ghost town now," says Stewart Nugent.

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A year ago, he was the only one who ignored the evacuation order and stayed in the village. He had worked as a firefighter in his youth and refused to leave his house. Armed with a water hose, a rake and a shovel, he struck the fire for six hours. His house remains, he managed to save his neighbor's as well. But everyone else is gone. Now, a year later, he still has only one neighbor.

- I knew everyone who lived here on the street. It was nice people, I will miss them, he says.