Fiery mailboxes and dogs in bags: fleeing
California's wildfire
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[November 19, 2018]
By Terray Sylvester
CHICO, Calif. (Reuters) - Nicole Montague
and her 16-year-old daughter Destiny noticed a red glow on the horizon
as they drove to school in Paradise, California, that Thursday morning.
They did not think much of it as they had seen fires nearby in the past.
Since they had not heard any warnings, they shrugged it off. But within
minutes mass panic broke out, said Nicole Montague, 45.
They gathered their nine dogs and a few belongings as the trailer park
they live in burst into flames.
"As we were driving out, the mailboxes were on fire," Nicole said. "All
you could hear were big booms and those were (neighbors') propane tanks
starting to explode."
California's deadliest ever wildfire, the innocuous-sounding "Camp
Fire," swept into Paradise early on Nov. 8, as a rapid-moving,
wind-fueled disaster that has left at least 76 people dead and more than
1,276 missing.
The flames moved so fast that some of the victims died in their cars in
a chaotic evacuation as gridlock formed on the two exit routes out of
town.
Through sheer luck or quick thinking, many of the survivors only barely
managed to escape.
Retirees Julie Walker and her husband, Lane, had lived in Magalia, a
northern suburb of Paradise, since 2003.
When the fire threatened their house, the Walkers avoided traffic jams
by taking to back roads.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2018/Nov/19/images/ads/current/hartsburggrain_daily_sda_021115.png)
They said they knew a route out because they spend a lot of time
exploring in their Jeep. So when the fire came, the Walkers led a
caravan of relatives and neighbors out to safety along dirt roads that
circumvented the traffic jam.
"They did not know what to do," Julie said of those overtaken by the
wildfire while trying to escape. "The fire was on us immediately."
"I DON'T THINK I'M GOING TO MAKE IT"
David Wigham, 51, who splits and sells firewood to support himself,
smelled smoke when he woke up early on Nov. 8. Assuming it was far away,
he went back to sleep.
He awoke hours later to a world turned red. Embers were blowing in
through his front door as he tried to stuff his Chihuahua, Dee Dee, into
a backpack.
"I thought we were going to spontaneously combust," Wigham said.
His pickup truck was aflame, so he fled on foot. Three different
strangers gave him rides and eventually he made it south to the town of
Oroville.
When the Montagues were certain they were going to die, Nicole called
her husband Eric, who was trying to flee in a separate vehicle, to say
goodbye.
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![](../images/111918pics/news_g13.jpg)
Nicole and Eric Montague, who lost their home in Paradise during the
Camp Fire, pose for a photo with their daughter, Destiny, at an aid
center for evacuees in Chico, California, U.S., November 15, 2018.
REUTERS/Terray Sylvester
![](../images/ads/current/richardson_lda_101218.png)
"I said, 'Honey I don't think I'm going to make it out of here, I
love you,'" she recalled.
Cars around them caught fire. People behind them on the road got out
of their cars, with some fleeing on foot and some jumping into other
people's cars to try to escape.
It took them five hours to drive 10 miles (16 km) to Chico, where 15
members of the family are staying in a one-bedroom apartment with
nine dogs.
Others would have died on the spot without help.
Betty Myers, 89, wheelchair-bound and diagnosed with Alzheimer's
disease, was among some 50 residents of an assisted-living facility
in Paradise who were evacuated in a caravan of vehicles, Myers' son
Ron Rohde said by phone from the San Francisco area.
Fires surrounded them on the road and the sky turned black. One
vehicle was abandoned because it was about to run out of gas and
they had to try at least two escape routes before making it out.
When Rohde finally reached his mother in Redding, California, she
was in bed at a hotel.
"Most of the staff lost their homes. They had to worry about their
own families, yet they focused on getting those 50 people out to
safety," Rohde said.
Not only could his mother not have escaped by herself, Rohde said,
but her Alzheimer's left her unaware of the danger.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2016/Aug/26/images/ads/current/directory_buttons.png)
"She was sitting in the car saying, 'Oh those are nice lights,'
waving at people," Rohde said he was told.
"When I asked her a couple days later what she thought of the fire,
she said 'What fire?'"
(Reporting by Terray Sylvester; Additional reporting by Suzannah
Gonzales in Chicago and Gabriella Borter in New York; Editing by
Bill Berkrot)
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