VIDEO/PHOTOS: Among those who found themselves in its deadly trajectory was longtime resident Donna Fink, who says she had been assured the night before by firefighters that her home was safe. She stayed up all night, nervous, and finally tried to rest, until something deep inside her told her to get up. She opened her eyes to an inferno outside every window. “I saw the fire on three sides,” Fink recalled. “It was moving down the hill like a locomotive, fast, and all I heard was things blowing up.”
She called for her partner, Bob, but he didn’t answer. She grabbed her two dogs and ran barefoot into the chaos, heading for the packed car where she thought Bob had gone. Smoke and heat blinded her. “I didn’t see any light, it was getting worse. And then I heard a voice yelling, ‘Lady! Lady! You have to come, lady, we’re both going to die here.’ I thought I was hallucinating.” She wasn’t. The voice belonged to Connor Bauman, a 26-year-old firefighter from Gardena, part of a strike team sent to help battle the fire. At that moment, Bauman and his crew had already watched homes vanish into 35-foot walls of flame.
From a distance, Bauman saw what looked like a house already lost, until a figure emerged. “Our gut reaction was, ‘She’s going to die,’” Bauman said live on KHTS Radio Wednesday. “It was a complete blackout. Dark as can be in the middle of the day.” He scaled a hill and a chain-link fence to get to her. Fink was in shock and disoriented, calling out for Bob and clutching her Chihuahua. Her two large dogs were barking and trying to protect her.
