Fire Outside My Window by Sandra Millers Younger

Author:Sandra Millers Younger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Globe Pequot
Published: 2013-09-02T16:00:00+00:00

Retirees Bob and Barbara Daly had also been forced back by the flames. Awakened by the sound of the wind rearranging their patio furniture, Bob Daly had immediately roused his wife, who began packing the couple’s valuables. He then drove up the steep, winding grade to the automatic gate that guarded the entrance to the neighborhood and opened it. He didn’t want anyone to be trapped in case the electricity failed. By the time he returned home and picked up Barbara, the fire had cut off their escape. Bob Daly thought about running for the reservoir down a narrow dirt access road adjacent to their property, but quickly rejected the idea as too risky. It was a long way to the water, at least a third of a mile, through heavy brush all the way, and the road itself was in terrible shape, so they’d have to walk. We’d never make it, Bob Daly decided.

Another neighborhood family did start down that narrow roadbed. The Shoharas—James, Solange, and their thirty-two-year-old son, Randy—drove to the trailhead in two vehicles. Solange led the way in a pickup loaded with a filing cabinet; the two men followed in a Toyota compact.

Bob Daly saw them starting down the access road on foot against terrific winds, even as flames descended the next hill, only a few hundred yards away.

“Don’t go down there,” he shouted. “It’s too rough.”

Pelted by embers and out of time, the Dalys took refuge in their swimming pool, on the leeward side of their house. No one used it anymore. In fact, for a couple of years now, they’d talked about having it filled in. Now they huddled in the cool water alongside rabbits, rats, and snakes, all of them seeking shelter from the firestorm, all of them functioning purely on survival instincts.

When the Santa Anas drove the flames into the Dalys’ house, a patio wall catapulted the worst of the killing heat up and over their heads, likely saving their lives. Within fifteen or twenty minutes, their home and everything in it had collapsed into ashes. As it burned, chunks of lumber and other debris rained down into the pool. To escape the barrage, the couple climbed out and clambered down a set of burning wooden steps to a paved turnaround circle in the road. Barbara took refuge on a rock in the center of the clearing and stayed there. When the worst of the fire had passed, Bob followed a bend in the asphalt road and found the couple’s detached RV garage untouched by the flames. He extinguished a few hotspots that threatened the building and pulled their motor home out in front. For the next few weeks, it would be the Dalys’ only home.

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