“The road is impassable,” the fire chief warned us. “You’ll never make it.” We’d pulled up next to his firefighting team in a snow of ashes, staring at Highway 39, the only route into the San Gabriel Canyon of Angeles National Forest, 30 miles northeast of L.A.
Thick smoke and bright orange flames roared from the trees beyond. My partner, John, and I, deputies for the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, exchanged glances. “We’ve got no choice,” I muttered. I wheeled our SUV around the roadblock, into the jaws of the fiery beast.
The firefighters had their job to do. We had ours: to save 70-year-old Sigrid Hopson. She lived in a remote cabin in the woods and had stubbornly refused to evacuate. Refused, that is, until the massive forest fire reached her house.
She’d placed a frantic call, begging for help. John and I both knew her. We couldn’t leave her there.
We peered through the soot on the windshield, picking our way through plumes of black smoke and flames that danced across the road. “Watch out!” John shouted. I swerved to avoid a chunk of burning tree that exploded in front of us.
The SUV’s air conditioner was on full blast, but still the crackling heat singed the hair on my arms. I pulled on work gloves so the steering wheel wouldn’t burn my hands. The stench of burning rubber, plastic and paint filled the cab. “My God,” John gasped, “the dashboard’s starting to melt!”
The next instant, the engine stuttered, starved of oxygen. I kept nursing the accelerator. Somehow we chugged on.
Then we reached “the Narrows.” The road became one lane, with a granite wall on one side and a 300-foot drop on the other.
At the bend of the road stood a stark reminder of how dangerous this stretch was even in normal conditions— a five-foot-high white cross, a memorial for someone who had veered over the edge. It wasn’t hard to do.
I eyed the smoke and flames rising from the canyon. Any minute now, we wouldn’t be able to pass. We’d be trapped. The firefighters’ warnings echoed in my ears. Last chance to turn around.
The cross made me think of Mrs. Hopson. I couldn’t let her become another memorial. We’d have to risk it.
Sweat streamed down our faces. Sparks blew across the fiery sky. We could barely breathe. Finally we reached a little parking area and spotted the goat path that led to Mrs. Hopson’s cabin. “Wish me luck,” John said, jumping out. He disappeared into the smoke.
Moments later, a flaming tsunami rolled across the road ahead. We were as good as trapped.
I radioed our command post at the base of the canyon. “The fire’s surrounded us. Send a helicopter. Or a water dropping plane to clear a path…”
“Can’t,” came the commander’s crackly voice. “Updrafts are too strong. Flying in isn’t possible.”
Then the radio died.
Where’s John? I wondered, fighting off the thought that I was the only one alive up here. Could he even see? Breathe? The ground itself was aflame! I was ready to jump into the firestorm and find him. You never abandon your partner.
All at once, a movement on the trail caught my eye. John appeared through the smoke, carrying a frail, frightened, whitehaired lady—Mrs. Hopson. He put her in the rear seat, and dove in front. “Let’s go,” he said, choking.
I turned around quickly and headed into the deadly smoke. It was our only chance, and not much of one at that. I could barely see the road. What would happen when we reached that 300-foot drop?
Near the Narrows, the smoke enveloped us completely. I inched the SUV forward into darkness, waiting for that sickening moment when I’d feel the tires slip and we’d plunge off the edge. Would anyone even know how we died?
Then, suddenly, the billowing clouds of smoke parted. A blinding light filled the vehicle. Were we burning up? I recognized a shape, glowing fluorescent white in front of us, as if illuminated from within, like a beacon.
The cross! Flames licked at shrubs around its base, yet it wasn’t burning. I’m here to protect you, it seemed to say.
Guided by the glow of the cross, we rolled safely through the Narrows and on down Highway 39. Close to the bottom, the tires melted completely. We emerged from the worst of the smoke and coasted to a stop—just yards from the roadblock. The firefighters looked shocked.
“We were sure you were dead,” the chief said, while his crew attended to Mrs. Hopson.
“It was like someone was watching over us,” I told John later as we gulped down water. Neither of us could figure out how that wooden cross was still standing while everything around it burned. Or how our half-melted SUV had even made it out.
“We should be dead,” John said, shaking his head.
The fire burned for 13 days, torching 21,000 acres. After it was extinguished, John and I drove back up the mountain, in a new SUV, to see if Mrs. Hopson’s place had survived. The forest along the way was nothing but ash. The cross at the Narrows was singed but somehow still standing.
Finally we reached the start of the goat trail winding between the charred skeletons of trees. John and I climbed out.
The trail itself was indistinguishable from the rest of the black, scorched earth, save for a line of tiny patches of healthy green grass, evenly spaced, leading from the old woman’s cabin. John’s footprints, where he had carried Mrs. Hopson to safety.
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