Alia Phillips thought she might never see her wedding ring again.
But even on her engagement anniversary, that was low on her list of concerns as she drove her Prius through orange smoke and falling, flaming branches. Wednesday morning had been a chaotic flurry of conflicting orders as the Mountain fire tore through residential neighborhoods in Camarillo, burning homes, fields and trees in its wake.
Phillips had left work that morning to check on her 18-year-old dog, Little Miss, and turn on her sprinklers when she first heard of the fire.
It had started fairly far away. To reach her three-story home on East Highland Drive in Camarillo Heights, the fire would have to jump over the 118 Freeway, cross fields, then go up and over a mountain.
A Morongo Fire Department truck drives through Alia Phillips’ in Camarillo Heights neighborhood on Saturday. Phillips, her husband and 18-year-old rescue dog Little Miss’ home was flattened by the Mountain fire.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
But in the time it took her to check on her house, everything changed. The sky had turned completely orange. It had gotten hot and the wind had grown more intense.
“ ‘Babe, the fire is here. I don’t know how. It’s here,’ ” she told her husband on the phone. “There weren’t even fire trucks in our neighborhood yet.”
She grabbed the dog and some cellphone chargers and tried to leave, but a firefighter told her it was too late. The only road out of the neighborhood was covered in fire. Ash was raining down from the sky.
The firefighter, Phillips said, told her it was safer at that point to remain in her home.
It wasn’t long before the house began to fill with thick smoke. Her husband instructed her to get their gas mask. When she briefly went outside, another fireman saw her. This time, the instructions were very different.
The wind-driven Mountain fire destroys a home and the landscape around it on Wednesday in Camarillo.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
“You gotta go — now, now, now,” he yelled.
As she left the house and closed the door, Phillips saw embers floating into the home. She thought the house was going to catch fire.
“I really didn’t want to die burning alive in my house,” she said.
Phillips threw Little Miss into the car and drove out of the driveway onto East Highland Drive, which was on fire. The trees surrounding the street were ablaze and flaming branches were falling into the street, on top of her car. She couldn’t see anything because of the smoke. On one side, the road falls off into a steep cliff. The car was overheating. She rolled over flaming logs.
Burning embers ignite the ground and a wooden fence as the wind-driven Mountain fire burns homes on Valley Vista Drive on Wednesday in Camarillo.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
“You can’t see anything and you are just hoping for the best. I was hyperventilating in the car. My husband was on the phone. He’s like, ‘You can do this,’ ” she recalled. “It was a complete miracle. I don’t know how I made it through that without falling off the cliff or burning alive.”
There was not much time to be joyful about her escape.
They found out Wednesday night that their house had been completely flattened by the fire. Nothing left. To sharpen the pain of the loss, the fire came on the day of the couple’s third engagement anniversary.
Phillips had not been able to grab her wedding ring as she escaped the house. It was in a bathroom drawer on the second floor.
And that drawer, like the house around it, had been reduced to ash.
Ontario firefighters help dig for items in the rubble of Alia Phillips and her husband’s home in Camarillo Heights.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
Capt. Kevin May of the East Fork Fire Protection District and his crew had driven down from Douglas County, Nevada, to assist in the firefight.
On Thursday, his engine was assigned to East Highland Drive in Camarillo Heights. They were tasked with putting out hot spots and flareups. The main goal was to protect the three out of seven houses that had not burned down the day before.
Throughout the day, May spoke with residents who filtered back into the neighborhood to survey the damage. He saw the couple that lived at 711 E. Highland Drive. There wasn’t much he could do for them. Their house was lost.
“I offered to look for a safe or whatever they might have that was lost in the rubble,” May said.
But the couple did not have a safe.
“She said, ‘The only thing I care about is my ring, my wedding ring,’ ” May said.
Alia Phillips and her 18-year-old rescue dog, Little Miss, at their Camarillo Heights home Saturday.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
May told Phillips that he and his crew would look for it. But he told her not to get her hopes up.
“A needle in a haystack would be easier to find than a ring in this house,” he told the couple.
Still, the firefighters got to work. They dug through the still-hot ash and positioned themselves where the couple believed the bathroom would have been. Then the detective work began.
They found a twisted frame of a couch, which might have been on the floor above the bathroom. They scraped through more debris, eventually finding a bathroom sink faucet.
“We started actually getting the feeling that maybe there’s a chance we’re in the right spot,” May said.
Capt. Kevin May helped find Alia Phillips’ wedding ring amid the rubble of her burned down Camarillo Heights home.
(Anthony Arellanes)
Then, an earring. When May showed it to Phillips, she said it came from the same drawer as the ring. More digging.
Veneer stone the couple said had lined the bathroom counter. A bracelet. Tweezers. Getting warmer.
“Probably not 60 seconds later we found the ring,” May said.
It was hot in the ash and May held it in his glove until it cooled. He presented it to Phillips. It was dirty, covered in soot. But it wasn’t misshapen. All the diamonds were still in place.
“It slid right onto her finger,” May said.
The whole search took about 10 minutes.
Alia Phillips and her husband at the remains of their home Saturday.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
“The odds were just so slim and we all knew that. It happened so quick it was unbelievable,” May said.
It felt almost as important for the firefighters as it was for Phillips, May said. They had not been able to help much. Everything had already burned by the time they got to the street.
Later that night, May’s engine ended up back in the couple’s driveway, where they parked for dinner. It felt like the right spot to be. The couple had left, but the firefighters had returned.
May took out his phone and messaged Phillips.
“Thank you for letting us be part of that moment,” he said.