EXCLUSIVE: Sulphur Fire victims tell harrowing tale of driving through flames, escaping alive
CLEARLAKE, Calif. (KGO) -- The stories of heroism and narrow escapes continue to pour in from the devastating North Bay fires. Our next story comes from the North Shore of Cearlake, where more than 150 homes were destroyed by the fast-moving Sulphur fire. The fire is out, but the traumatic memories will live on.
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Jeffery Morris still can't believe he and three friends made it out of their Clearlake Mobile Home Community alive.
Called Holiday Island, the 30-unit park was completely cut off by flames as the Sulphur Fire raced down the hill toward them on the Eastern Shore of Clear Lake in the middle of the night.
VIDEO: Sulphur Fire victim describes terrifying escape
"It was hard," Morris said. "We didn't know what to do... we panicked. We just all ran."
Morris and his friends evacuated their neighbors but were then pinned by the flames. The truck Morris was going to make his escape in was consumed by fire.
So he and his friends had to go to plan B.
"The other two guys -- they remembered there was an aluminum boat down here. So they threw it in the water and came around to the backside and I went out the backside to escape," Morris told ABC7 News. "We got out of here on a boat and were rescued about an hour later from the sheriff's department."
"My son and I drove our motor home through the fire," said Larry Piazza, who lives on the hillside above Holiday Island, also devastated by fire. Somehow his home survived.
"I'm really hurt by all this. What it did to everybody, not just my son and myself," Piazza added. "But everybody's stuff -- everything's gone."
When asked if he'll ever be back, Piazza said, "Never. Never. I can't come back. This was too hard on me."
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