Pair who fled Calif. fire horror safe in Riva

When Larry Taylor stepped out of his Magalia, California, home to get the newspaper last Thursday, he knew he had to leave.

"I looked up and saw this huge black cloud that was under lit. I knew it was a fire," Taylor said.

The Camp Fire blazing through Northern California has claimed 48 lives and 8,800 structures since it began last Thursday, making it the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in the state's history.

Taylor, 72, rushed inside, turned on the television and emergency scanner. He heard a fireman say there was fire on both sides of the road in a neighborhood nearby. A neighbor called and said they could see flames.

"We need to get out of here," he told his 94-year-old mother, Mary.

They grabbed prepacked bags and hit the road.

"We didn't take anything else. No paperwork or anything," Larry Taylor said.

After sitting in traffic for hours, spending a night in a hotel and taking a flight to BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport, Larry and his mother sought refuge with his brother, Forrest Taylor, in Riva.

Neighbors who stayed close to the area sent photos of the California home they'd lived in since 1985. The only thing left is a melted garage door.

"Every house on our street was burnt to the ground. Gone. Nothing left, just slab," Larry Taylor said. "The memories you have gathered over a lifetime are gone. Stuff from three generations back, all gone."

They'll never be able to replace family photos going back to the 1940s that burned. Larry and Mary need to find a way to get their medications, and Mary is waiting on a new oxygen tank to be delivered to Riva.

"Leaving like that and not taking anything, to think, 'Well I should have taken this,' or 'I should have taken that,' no we had to leave. Other people took the extra time and didn't make it. What we did was the right thing," Larry Taylor said.

Like many who lost their homes, they need to figure out what their insurance can do to help them rebuild. Larry Taylor says he's more worried about things than his mother.

As the two sat in deadlocked traffic, she said there's only one thing she regretted not bringing with them: the last slice of her homemade apple pie she had to leave on the counter. She'll be making two pies for Thanksgiving with her sons in Riva.

"I'm fine. I just never dreamed of it," she said. "We're just glad to be alive."

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Credit: By Selene San Felice - ssanfelice@capgaznews.com - twitter.com/selenecapgaz

Caption: Mary and Larry Taylor (shown at right) and their burned down home in California. They're staying with Mary's other son, Forest, in Riva.

courtesy of Forest Taylor