Rural arts/maker collaborative destroyed in northern Sierra fire

The Los Angeles Times' Anita Chabria reported this story two days ago, dateline Doyle, California, population 678.  The headline is "Fleeing high rents, he found a tiny town for his Burning Man Dreams.  Then came wildfire."  Here's the lede:

Mike Snook had a vision for this rough and faded California town on the Nevada border: It would be a refuge for the free spirits of Burning Man, those priced out of the Bay Area and looking for a place to build really big art.

In 2019, he began buying run-down property for cheap — his first purchase was $30,000 — while slowly loading it up with tools, supplies and random stuff. Think an entire shipment of Chinese teak doors, a 1946 UPS truck, a Zamboni ice cleaner.

Saturday night, much of that dream went up in smoke when the Beckwourth Complex fire roared through Doyle, burning 33 houses, including multiple homes owned by Snook — as just about everyone here calls him.

“Five houses down, one left,” Snook said, with a forced laugh, sitting in the midday darkness of the Buck Inn, Doyle’s only bar. “I thought, ‘There’s no way it’s going to hit all of them.’”

The Beckwourth Complex fire, at 100,000 acres, is the largest California wildfire so far this year. Doyle is unincorporated, roughly equidistant from Susanville, county seat of Lassen County, and Reno, county seat of Washoe County, Nevada.