When Bill Johnson returned to his home in Lake Isabella, an hour outside of Bakersfield, Calif., to survey the damage left by a raging wildfire he discovered the bodies of his elderly neighbours Byron McKaig, 81, and his 90-year-old wife, Gladys, according to local newspaper reports.
Johnson said it appeared Byron died trying to shield his wife from the approaching flames.
“He was, like, on top of her, and they were together, like he was blocking her from the fire,” Johnson told the Los Angeles Times. “It made me sick because immediately I saw and knew exactly what had happened — that they were alive and ran out of this burning inferno and got stuck, and that was where they ended.
“I thought it was terrible for those people to go like that. Just horrible,” he continued. “They didn’t deserve it.”
The couple, a retired priest and his church organist wife, have been confirmed by the Kern County Sheriff’s Office as the two fatalities in the wildfires that have scorched more than 60,000 acres across California.
More than 4,500 firefighters are battling the fires which stretch from the Klammath National Forest in Northern California to the Mexican border in San Diego County, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
READ MORE: Elderly couple dead, 150 homes burn in California wildfire
Friends and family of the couple, who have lived in the area for more than 30 years, told local reporters they took comfort in the fact the couple died in each other’s arms.
“They were each other’s half,” Susan McKaig, Byron’s daughter, told Bakersfield.com. “They loved each other very much and the family is taking comfort from the fact that they passed together.”
Byron met his wife Gladys at the local church in the Lake Isabella area in the early 1980s before they were married in the summer of 1984, according to Bakersfield.com.
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The couple had a love for music and religion, and were deeply devoted to one another.
“It was beautiful, his devotion to her,” Bishop Eric Menees with the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin, told Bakersfield.com “He cared for her up until their very last seconds.”
The couple’s bodies were found side by side, police said they appeared to have been overcome by smoke.
A memorial service for the couple will be held July 23 at St. Peter’s Church, where Byron had volunteered.
“They never went anywhere without each other,” Ray Conner, a neighbour, told the Times. “And that’s the best way I’m going to describe them. They were just together all the time. Through it all, they were together.”