A man recalled the horrific phone call he had with his wife and great-grandchildren just minutes before the Carr, Calif., wildfire engulfed their home, taking the lives of everyone inside.
Ed Bledsoe was running an errand Thursday on the outskirts of Redding when he got a frantic phone call from his wife.
“I was only gone about 15 minutes when my wife called and said, ‘You gotta get here. The fire’s coming up the hill,'” Bledsoe told CBS News.
The man told the news network he thought the danger of the fire was still kilometres away, giving him some time to step out of their rural home.
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“I was talking to my little grandson on the phone, he was saying, ‘Grandpa, please, you gotta come and help us, the fire’s at the back door,'” Bledsoe recalled. “I said, ‘I’m right by you, honey, just hold on, grandpa’s coming.'”
The man explained the fire made the roads nearly impassable, both by vehicle and on foot.
Officials said the blaze sparked Monday by a vehicle in forested hills grew to 328 square kilometres. It pushed southwest of Redding, the largest city in the region, toward the tiny communities of Ono, Igo and Gas Point, where scorching heat, winds and bone-dry conditions complicated firefighting efforts.
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Bledsoe’s 70-year-old wife, Melody, and his five-year-old great-grandson and four-year-old great-granddaughter died in the blaze.
“My wife wrapped them up in wet blankets. She wet a bunch of blankets and put them down at the side of the bed. She got a wet blanket and put it on her,” Bledsoe recalled of his wife’s efforts to save herself and the children. “She got over the top of them and they lay there until the fire took them.”
Bledsoe told CBS he did not receive an evacuation warning order and wouldn’t have left the family if he did.
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“Nothing. Absolutely not a word,” he told the news station.
However, Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko told CBS officials did tell residents to evacuate their homes in Redding and authorities are working to determine whether the Bledsoe home was warned by phone or a door-knock.
“In the areas both before the Bledsoe home and after the Bledsoe home, there was evidence that notifications were made for the door-to-door notifications,” Bosenko said.
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As of Monday, at least eight people had died, including two firefighters, as result of the Carr fire and another 11 have been reported missing.
–with a file from the Associated Press