Retired Brentwood fire captain escorted caravan to safety in Paradise

Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, CA)

Nov. 14--John T. Foster fought fires for 30 years in East Contra Costa County, so the 55-year-old retiree had no intention of leaving his new home in Paradise to do so again -- until he saw the embers fall and nearby trees catch fire.

The 55-year-old former fire captain and his wife Patty had moved from Brentwood into their bucolic El Dorado Mobile Estates home in July, hoping to enjoy their retirement years hunting, fishing and relaxing. They hadn't even secured homeowner's insurance when the Camp Fire broke out Thursday morning.

Foster was having a cup of coffee and watching the TV news around 7:30 when a neighbor knocked on his door to point out the invading smoke. He awakened his wife and she quickly dressed, put on her flip-flops and grabbed some important papers -- just in case.

Foster filled a nearby water trough he might need if he decided to stay behind, then saw trees and a house catch fire only 70 feet away. There stood his 89-year-old neighbor, who he only knew as Shirley, tightly holding her miniature poodle as the flames whipped up behind her.

"She was standing, crying and praying nonstop in front of the house," Patty Foster said. "She has no car, she doesn't drive."

The Fosters carefully loaded her into Patty's SUV, while John grabbed his 7-year-old chocolate Miniature Pinscher/Chihuahua Dixie and jumped into his pickup. He said they were the last to leave the 100-space mobile home park on Skyview, which would later get destroyed by California's deadliest fire ever.

"I was going to stay because I thought I knew how to save it (the mobile home), but it got too hot," John Foster said. "It was very cold in the morning, but once the heat got close enough, it was like a big heater and we were sweating."

Shirley was grateful for the ride, but kept telling Patty Foster to turn off the heater. All she could do was try to comfort Shirley as they inched southward on the crowded road to safety, Patty Foster said.

All three were soon surrounded by flames on Skyway when they saw an incredible sight -- a man, his hair singed and shirt ripped with holes from the fire, was walking against traffic toward the mobile home park. It was Shirley's son. Determined to save his mom, he had trudged a couple of miles up the fire-engulfed road to try to reach her.

"She yelled out to him and he got down on his knees and started balling because he thought she was gone," John Foster said.

The Fosters would continue on with Shirley while her son returned to his car, promising to meet up at the Costco parking lot in Chico later that day. The minutes would turn to hours, however, before they would make it the 17 miles or so to safety.

As they crept down the road, trapped in traffic gridlock with neighbors also trying to flee, John Foster got out of the car several times to look for a home, a garage, anything to serve as a shelter, but he saw none. By then, 50 or so cars had joined his caravan, including neighbors from the mobile home park and others, but with fire barreling down on them in all directions, police were evacuating people from their cars.

The Fosters refused to leave, believing the vehicles offered their only shelter. "This is all I got to ride out this fire," John argued.

With the cars at a standstill, one driver kept honking her horn. They would later learn she was in labor and needed a C-section, and the honking was to alert to authorities so they could find her.

In the chaotic scene, some people abandoned their cars after police said only trucks would be allowed to continue. As Foster drove down the road, people and their pets started jumping into his truck. At one point he counted 30 people and 14 dogs crammed into his cab before he decided to pull over.

Three Paradise policemen and two sheriff's deputies huddled around the former fire captain's truck, and the first officer, who had urged him to abandon his truck, now asked him what to do.

"We were sitting still, we were trapped," John Foster said. "Up ahead I saw a convalescent home with a cement parking lot and ivy. I said we are all going to huddle together and we are going to make it out of this."

With fire on all sides, the cars pulled into the lot along with a CalFire engine that sought shelter there a few minutes later.

"By the time we pulled in, the fire was crowning in the trees, it was all around us," he said. "The telephone poles were on fire, the propane tanks were exploding."

Foster's wife said she was in shock.

"I just wanted to get out of the fire, and I was comforting Shirley and telling her to keep praying; it was keeping me calm," she said. "I knew if I stuck with him (John), it was my best chance to get out because he knew what to do."

The caravan had stopped about 100 feet before a school bus that was abandoned in the middle of the road and later pushed to the ditch to clear the path. Everyone, including those in the bus, huddled in the cement parking lot, John Foster said.

CalFire later radioed in to be sure the road ahead was clear for the caravan to continue. At several points along the journey, helicopters dropped water on the cars and road below to cool them, the former firefighter said.

"It was really dark, eerily dark," Patty Foster said. "It was very scary. I don't know how I kept calm, but I did."

Friends from Redding were at the Chico Costco waiting when the Fosters and their 89-year-old neighbor arrived. Shirley's daughter was also there waiting for her mom.

"Even while the flames were rolling in, he was jumping into action and helping others get out safely, even helping the sheriffs go into action and escort others to safety," said DeAnne Gliedt, whose son Foster had saved from an asthma attack years earlier. "He is a hero."

"I ain't no dang hero," Foster said. "We were just trying to help people out. These volunteers, they are the heroes. I'm touched by all the volunteers...It's amazing. There are truckloads of stuff coming in. It's unreal."

The Fosters have since learned that although their mobile home burned to the ground, their storage unit appears to be intact. They may have lost their grandmother's prized china, but they managed to grab her Gibson electric guitar, and John's musical equipment, plus his father's firefighting memorabilia are safely stored.

The former performer with the East County bands Inside Outside and Express was planning to start up his own Southern rock band in Paradise as soon as he settled in.

Until now, Foster said the worst fire he'd ever experienced was the Fork Fire, which burned 83,057 acres in Lake County in 1996.

"I didn't think anything would top that, but this did," he said. "We're just happy we are alive -- it is the scariest thing I have very been through. Now my wife knows why I was so grumpy when I would come home from work."

Even so, the Fosters say they plan to rebuild -- but this time with a cinder block shelter.

"No matter what, I will return," the former firefighter said. "I will have the most fireproof house you could ever have in your life."

A GoFundMe account has been set up for the Fosters at https://bit.ly/2K1MubJ

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