"I don't want to die!" Jessica screamed as she glanced over her right shoulder, out the car's rear window.

A wall of flames was lapping up the darkness of our mountainside, heading for the Rim.

"Oh my gosh," Jonathan uttered. "See how high the fire is!"

I kept looking back while trying to keep the car on the narrow highway. When I got a chance, I pulled over into a turnout to watch. The crimson flames seem beautiful, alluring, and destructive.

"Don't stop!" Jessie yelled. "And don't you dare take a picture! We should have left seven hours ago."

"Don't worry. We're safe. We'll get down the mountain," I tried to assure her. She held a big white bird cage on her lap with a parakeet in it. Penny the Parrot was in the other bird cage, back beside Jonathan. Bubbles the Beta Fish was in his little evacuation bowl in the car's cupholder.

"I want Daddy!" Jessie whined as I took one last look at the approaching wall of fire before merging with the long line of headlights making a slow, orderly caravan down the burning mountain.

Jess is a helpful, quiet, intelligent soul who is gentle with birds and people. When it comes to catastrophes, she scares easily--like her parrot who flies off my shoulder if startled by the ceiling fan.

"You can call Daddy on the cell phone," I suggested. "Tell him the fire is getting closer, the traffic is bad, and he should leave now."

Edd had stayed behind for last-minute house checks and to load up the three cats.

"Do you think Midnight will be afraid?" Jess asked, sounding calmer as she dialed on my small red phone.

"She'll be safe in her carry box," I replied.

Jess spoke briefly with Edd who assured her he would be leaving soon--especially if people stopped calling him on the phone.

We drove through another town, and I wondered if my friend Mary Pat, who had to evacuate a couple of months ago, would be leaving her home again. We entered the highway down, which cut quickly toward the valley, only to see flames leaping up from the valley floor almost to the top, parallel to the highway.

"Oh my gosh," Jonathan said again, pointing in the darkness toward the car's right side.

"Jessie, call Daddy one more time. Tell him a wall of flame is closing in on the highway from the west, and he'd better hurry. The fire can't be more than a mile away. They'll shut this evacuation route soon, and it'll take him five hours to get down the mountain the back way."

Jessie got her message through just as Edd was leaving.

"I'm scared," she admitted as she set the cellphone down.

An eerie red light danced on her right cheek, her arm, and down her long braid. "I don't want to die so young, like this, on a burning mountain."

"There are a lot of firefighters up here," I assured her. "Remember how we kept checking the fire's progress by driving down to the highway's edge? When the fire got close is when we decided to leave. No one even told us to go! We had all day to pack the stuff we needed. Now that area will be packed with fire engines, but the planes won't be able to dump water after dark."

"Will our house burn?" she asked, staring at me in the dark car, the birthmark on her left cheek barely visible in the dashboard's green light.

"I don't know," I replied, knowing that something would be burning.

As we drove lower toward the valley, strange white flashes spread across the mountain like lightning.

"What's that?" Jessie asked.

"I think those are electrical transformers exploding."

My mind started wandering back to earlier that evening. The electricity had gone out right before we evacuated. We had to wear headlamps to carry bags down our stairs. We swept the beams through each room one last time, wondering what final item to take, what we wouldn't want to burn. We grabbed a few more framed photographs and kids' toys, then stepped outside to a quiet street with no lamps shining from the windows of already-abandoned homes.

Oh please protect the mountain, I prayed as I tried to keep from crying, as I entered the freeway and left our home behind.

Over an hour later, we arrived at our friends the Connelley's, in the desert valley. As soon as we got out of the car, Heidi remarked,

"You smell like smoke."

I nodded and replied, "You helped me survive cancer seven years ago, and now you keep me from the fire."
I practically fell into her arms.

Jessica and Jonathan ran to play with Heidi's children and their cousin Linda, whom Heidi and her husband Jonathan had adopted. Big Jonathan helped us unload birdcages, suitcases, and toys. We got situated in our temporary shelter as Edd pulled up in a car full of boxes and cats.

"I got down just before they closed the highway," he told me, kissing me in the dark by his car. "I heard the fire jumped the highway and was coming up."

If it continued, it would reach our house . . .

We turned on the news and watched updates of the fire's progress--for the next five harrowing days: in the middle of the night when we couldn't sleep, in the early morning when our nightmares woke us, in the afternoon when we felt helpless because we couldn't go see for ourselves, in the evening after dinner when we tried to talk about something else but faltered.

Sometimes it looked as though the firemen would succeed at keeping the flames from jumping the highway to the dead treetops and communities of homes and businesses, schools and churches, that lined the top of the our mountains from side to side. Other times the flames broke free and burned homes and businesses.

We watched as towering flames licked along a large, familiar A-frame roof. The news helicopter announcer told us it was historic Wylie Woods Presbyterian Conference Center--where just two weeks ago the kids and I had taken a Homeschool Tree class taught by Doris Bowers. And then, late on Wednesday night, October 29, the flames burned back toward the major communities and towns.

We had friends there. The red log cabin where Doris lived--had it been lost? And the garage, stacked full of teaching material collected over 40 years, was it reduced to ashes? Had she rescued anything in her old camper truck? Had she evacuated? She would be the type to stay until the last possible moment, keeping watch.

And what about Clayton and Jessica Connolly, who got married last April? He is a musician, leading worship with Edd at Calvary Chapel and teaching children how to play the piano. Had all his keyboards melted? And Jessica, the oceanographer, were her college textbooks and shell collections gone? Had their photos and their wedding presents burned?

And Suzanne Bowen, who owns the local health food store and has five children. Had her house been swept away? And all those toys and homeschool books and bottles of herbal remedies?

A fireman pulled a Los Angeles T.V. newscrew from their burning van when flames arced over both sides of the highway. Veteran fire captains said they had seen nothing like this fire that hit the tall, dead pines above an entire neighborhood. Years of drought, bark beetles, hot weather, and Santa Ana winds caused Three-hundred-foot flames that shot into the air like tornados swirling with sparks. Sap-filled trees exploded, shooting burning branches like missiles toward new fires. Rooftops crashed like flying saucers. Propane tanks blew up one after the other, and open gas pipes burned long after the fire swept through like The Perfect Storm.

"It's just like the dream that woke me up on Saturday morning, two hours before an arsonist lit our mountain on fire," I moaned to Heidi and her children gathered around the T.V. screen. "And Edd looked out our kitchen window and, for a moment in the sunrise, saw flames above the trees. Without debate, we started packing.

"And out the window was a calm fall day, with the sun shining, a breeze blowing the cedar branches, and the maple trees turning red and orange. And we wandered around our mountain home--like a treehouse in Lothlorian--with its big windows and heavy French doors and honey-colored paneling--and all the paintings, and the rock fireplace with photos on the mantel--and wondered if it all would burn.

"And we walked out onto the deck and stared at the dry stream by the yard and the forest backed up against us, dust and pine needles and fallen leaves everywhere--and saw only fuel . . .

"And I sent an email from my computer room, to all the people on my Mailing List:

"'We Are Evacuating.'

"And Doyle and Paula Eden, friends closer to the fire, were watching a movie when they checked their email. They hadn't even known the fire was racing up the slopes toward them, at the rate of an acre a minute.

"No one told us to leave."

Heidi, with her long reddish hair and practical voice, stated,

"Well, that just shows that when the fire gets close, you go."

And I wanted to laugh at her statement, but I couldn't. We kept watching the news.

"The heat was so great that it knocked me on my back," a news photographer said. "If I had not been wearing this yellow fireman's jacket, I would have been burned."

"I can't talk about it," said a longtime L.A. newscaster who had stayed up all night, reporting. His white shirt was singed with black spots, and ash made his hair look gray. "I just feel for all these people who have lost their homes."

And an anchorman wailed,

"The Crown Jewel of California, playground of the stars, is burning!"

And we, safe in Heidi's living room, could only watch the drama and pray for rain. We also watched the fire in her fireplace, orange and red and white and yellow flames flowing together, dancing like something alive, licking along the wood and sending sparks up the chimney. Seductive, warm, and romantic, fire can save lives or destroy them. Would some of the sparks escape and lodge in the trees or rooftops?

Frustrated with the television stations that kept getting the mountain names wrong, we turned to the Internet and Ranger Al's accurate accounts on www.fireupdate.com. Al, who stayed on the mountain to help the firefighters, listed the streets and houses that burned--a document of several pages.

We checked our email, hoping to hear from mountain friends like Josh and Lisa Williams, with whom we had dinner a week before the fire. Ironically, Edd and I had complained to them about about our difficult October! Lisa, who used to be a radio host, sent us emails. Josh, a high-tech computer guy, kept in touch by cellphone. Even Pastor Tom from Calvary Chapel made a list of all the cellphone owners in our evacuated church, and he called to check on us.

"I feel like a shepherd with all the flock gone," he said over the static-filled receiver.

And friends from all over the country, from Ireland, and New Zealand, sent us emails with offered prayers.

We were dispersed to the valleys and cities and beaches, in Red Cross Shelters, houses, or hotels, but we kept together electronically and hoped to return home soon.

Even our evacuation areas were not safe. A fire broke out near the Temecula wine country. We nervously watched the southeast flames crest distant hills, then got out binoculars and followed low-flying planes as they dropped water.

Further south, much of San Diego burned. People were killed in their cars while trying to flee the fires in their suburban neighborhoods. In Ventura and Los Angeles counties, houses and canyons burned. Smoke rose in giant, mushroom plumes in all directions. Horizons glowed red, and the air was heavy with ash.

"Is it the end of the world?" Jonathan asked as he climbed up to watch beside me on a hill of rocks.

"Not yet," I assured him, tousling his curly hair.

"I wish we were still in New Zealand," he whimpered. "Where there are lakes and rivers. Remember how you dressed me in my Frodo costume and took my picture in a field?"

"Yes, I remember. And we drove to Mount Cook and saw the snow and glaciers, in the Land of the Lord of the Rings."

And so, like a scene from a film, much of California burned that week--the largest fire in United States history. Three quarters of a million acres burned. 3000 homes perished--whole suburbs together, entire country towns wiped out. Twenty people lost their lives, including a fireman who died protecting a stranger's property.

And then, amazingly, the weather changed. The Santa Ana winds died down, and the breezes blew in westerly, over the cool Pacific Ocean. Rain swept down from Alaska, water muddied ashes in the valleys, and snow dusted our mountains. That was not in the T.V. weather forecast. When was the last time we had snow in October?

Two weeks after evacuation, we drove up a burned mountain. A full moon shone above short black stubs that dotted the canyons. Bare black treetrunks shone eerily in the moonlight, and even the dirt and rocks were ashen. And we thought,

Our mountain looks like Mordor.

Everyone we knew in one community lost homes, except for Doris Bowers whose house was high enough atop a hill that the flames did not reach it. Even people from the local newspaper where I work were hit, including my Editor Davey Porter, my friend Laura who works in advertising, and Gordon who does the fishing column.

I wandered down to their neighborhood, dazed, to take some photographs and write a story for the paper:

There is a bridge between 2 houses, on the corner of Hook Creek and Bridge Roads. The house to the right looks ready for a fall day, its cheerful redwood walls and scalloped roof surrounded by green bushes, a lawn, and the red and yellow leaves of healthy trees. A brooke bubbles at its verge, under the bridge. The house to the left is the last one burned in a long line of devastation. Everything is gray and black: car shells, twisted metal, broken steps, heaps of ash. Charred stone chimneys rise like memorials in what used to be a neighborhood.

Here the firemen took a stand in the worst firestorm in California history, where 300-foot flames burned tall dead pine trees which exploded like bombs.

Further down Hook Creek Road lies the ruins of another house, the home of newlyweds Clayton and Jessica Connolly of Calvary Chapel. Clayton, a worship leader, rescued his keyboards and wedding photos, but little else. When a CNN television news crew found him standing next to his leveled house, they asked why he was smiling.

Clayton replied, "They can take my home, my property, and even my wedding gifts, but they can't take my Jesus."

Up near The Malt Shop, a red log cabin survived. Its owner, Doris Bowers, has lived in these mountains for 40 years. She is a homeschool science teacher, and all of her teaching materials are stored in her garage. As she gratefully checked on her property, she said,

"Well, at least we have some trees left on this mountain. Fewer to cut down now."

Then she got in her truck, waved, and headed down the mountain to teach another class.

And other people showed their gratitude for surviving the fire. On the lawn of one untouched house a handpainted sign read "Thank you. We love you all, and so does Jesus." A big American flag waved over a burnt house further down the way. On a slope, someone sat in a white tent on the remains of his home. At the old Car Wash, a Fire Rescue Center began offering counseling, hot meals, clothes, and all types of necessary aid. Utility trucks and repair crews lined the roads.

The neighborhood is already rebuilding. Maybe it was never really lost, for the people who lived there survived. And the rest of us, hardy mountain people who knew the risks when we moved into the forest, share the experience with each other at the grocery store or in the post office. We ask where we evacuated to and talk about the fire. Sometimes we cry into comforting arms. And perhaps we remember a verse from Psalm 30:

"Lord, by Your favor You have made my mountain stand strong."

And so, like the Bible verse suggested, much of our mountain survived though nearly 100,000 acres, 1000 homes, and 10 businesses burned. On a map put out by the Crest Forest Fire Department, the fire area looked like a giant, open red hand grasping the mountaintop on three sides. Their website's slide show, photographs taken by firefighters, gave us a glimpse of the monster they fought. Yet on most of the Rim you could not tell there had been a wildfire, as our house and many others stood untouched and did not even smell of smoke.

Thank you God, for changing the weather. And thank you, firemen, for taking a stand at Strawberry Peak, a mile from our home, where 1200 of you lined up with shovels. Like Gandalf with the fiery monster, you stood at a point, dug in your staff, and said,