Pastor Doug Crowder leads Magalia Pines Baptist Church, Magalia is near Paradise – a town which is now virtually incinerated after receiving the worst of the fire.
He said he was first aware of the fire when he saw it in the distance at about 7 in the morning. The fire he could see was from the sane town where his church had helped clear up 150 homes from a fire exactly 10 years ago.
Pastor Doug told Premier: “However, within the next hour, the fire raced down the mountain 20 miles to the bottom of the town of Paradise.
“Paradise started evacuating and Paradise is disintegrated now”
The town of Magalia then got warnings to evacuate too, with 12,000 people trying to leave via one road. But Pastor Doug stayed behind with the people who couldn’t leave town.
“At that time it was moving fast but these things are really unpredictable and we had never had one in Magalia”
However, the fire then surrounded Magalia, leaving those in the church stuck where they were.
“We were then trapped from both directions and no one could get in or get out and we had no communication because they cut off the cell towers and so we had no water, no power and no communication.
“The only people who knew we were there were the fire department because they were trapped too.”
Crowder said he stayed so busy that he didn’t feel scared and everyone settled…
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