GUY^ WATHEN/SAN^FRANCISCOCHRONICLE/POLARIS“I’LL LEAD YOU OUT.”
Cal Fire captain Shawn Raley barked
evacuation orders over the radio for the
neighbourhood of Sunset Terrace. The
sky was red and the wind screamed,
shaking the leaves off of trees. New fires
lit in shrubs and on roofs. A 24-year
veteran of wildland blazes, Raley had
seen nearly everything, including swirl-
ing eddies of air called fire whirls. But
he hadn’t seen anything like this.
At around 7:15 p.m., he drove toward
subdivisions tucked into wooded hills.
He figured that residents would need
help escaping. His headlights barely
pierced the smoke, but he could see
three bulldozers inch past him on two-
lane Buenaventura Boulevard. Don
Andrews, who was unaware of the dan-gers he was about to face, drove one;
contractors Terry Cummings and Jim-
mie Jones drove the other two. They
were under electrical lines, which were
swaying in the wind, and Raley shouted
at the men to move away.
In the driveway of a sprawling house,
Raley spotted a Tesla with someone
in the driver’s seat. Dr. Thiruvoipati
Nanda Kumar, 62, had raced eight kilo-
metres home from Vibra Hospital of
Northern California. His wife, Yasoda,
58, and daughter, Sushma, 29, hadn’t
received an evacuation alert, and when
the power cut out, their garage door
wouldn’t open, locking their car inside.
“Go back!” Raley shouted at Kumar,
sounding his siren.
“My wife and daughter are there.Captain Shawn
Raley rescued
Dr. Thiruvoipati Nanda
Kumar and his family
(at right) from their
burning home.reader’s digest
42 april 2020