- LOS ANGELES (Reuters)
- A woman about to shoot herself to death to escape being burned alive
by a wildfire racing toward her mountaintop home was saved seconds before
pulling the trigger in a daring rescue worthy of a Hollywood film, authorities
said on Tuesday.
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- The wildfire that erupted at about noon on Sunday drove
about 7,000 campers from Angeles National Forest, a 650,000-acre park in
the San Gabriel Mountains popular with Los Angeles residents. The mountains
make up the north rim of the Los Angeles Basin, which encircles the city
of Los Angeles.
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- In some cases, campers had just seconds to pick up their
gear and drive down the winding Angeles Crest Highway to safety after authorities
discovered the fire about 30 miles northeast of Los Angeles.
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- The wind-whipped fire reached Crystal Lake, a popular
fishing and camping spot at the top of a mountain ridge about four hours
later.
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- Sigrid Hopson, 60, was alone at her Crystal Lake home
with her three dogs when she noticed the fire surrounding her house and
called emergency services, said sheriff's Lt. Tim Cornell.
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- Cornell said Hopson was "distraught" and "suicidal"
by the time she reached sheriff's dispatchers, convinced that she would
die in the flames.
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- "She believed the fire was going to get her, and
she was right because the entire area was in flames," Cornell said.
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- Deputies Paul Archambault and John Rose, who regularly
patrolled the remote area and knew Hopson, took the call.
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- Driving a sheriff's Ford Expedition through walls of
flames and dodging rockslides on the remote mountain roads, the deputies
had to stop about 1/8-mile from Hopson's home because of smoke and flames.
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- "They put themselves in peril because the fire had
engulfed the area around their vehicle but they just kept moving,"
Cornell said.
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- Blinded by smoke, Rose ran the remaining distance to
Hopson's home. As the deputy approached, a gunshot rang out.
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- When Rose got closer, he saw Hopson holding a gun to
her head and a dog lying dead at her feet.
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- The deputy yelled, "Dammit, don't shoot! It's Rose."
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- He ordered Hopson to drop the gun, but she didn't immediately
respond, saying she had to shoot her other two dogs, Cornell said.
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- With the flames threatening to block their escape to
the SUV, Rose asked Hopson what she planned to do about her cat.
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- "She looked at him and said, 'The cat?' and pulled
the gun away from her head," Cornell said. Hopson has no cats. Rose
seized the pistol and pulled Hopson into the waiting vehicle.
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- The Expedition plunged down the narrow mountain road
through walls of flaming chaparral and through a narrow pass littered with
fallen boulders. The vehicle grew so hot that its tires began to smoke
and the deputies could not touch the interior panels, Cornell said.
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- About 5 miles from Hopson's home, two of the Expedition's
tires melted. They pressed on, but a short time later the vehicle's engine
seized from the heat and died, Cornell said.
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- The perilous drive had taken the deputies and Hopson
below the fire line, and they were able to walk out of the forest to safety,
Cornell said. Hopson was later released unharmed to her husband.
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- The deputies went back to the area the next day and found
the home untouched by fire and Hopson's other two dogs alive, Cornell said.
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- "The firefighters couldn't explain it," Cornell
said. "All around the house was completely destroyed.
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- The heat- and wind-driven wildfire, known as the Curve
fire, had consumed 14,000 acres of thick underbrush by Tuesday and was
expected to be contained by Sept. 10, a U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman
said.
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- The fire added to the record acreage consumed by a series
of mammoth blazes that have plagued the drought-stricken western United
States this fire season.
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- The cause of the Curve fire was under investigation on
Tuesday.
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