Local 9573 Steward and Father Barely Escape Blaze

Boom, a house up the street exploded, then another, and another," said Jill Carlton-Payne, a Local 9573 steward who narrowly escaped her San Bernardino neighborhood, as a wildfire set off numerous gas explosions in nearby abandoned houses.

Carlton-Payne, 44, a shop steward at Verizon's Victorville Call Center, at first took it in stride as the wildfire encroached. She let a neighbor's kids climb up on her roof and hose it down to protect it from falling cinders.

The kids did the same thing across the street, where her father, 91 and in poor health, was living alone.

When she got word that the neighborhood was being evacuated, she called a cousin to come and help her father and - in 20 minutes - packed her mother's paintings, insurance papers, unpaid bills and her dog into the car. Then she went back inside to look for her cat.

Meanwhile, a neighbor ran into several houses up the street from hers and turned the gas off, preventing further explosions. "I'm lucky to be alive," she said.

Though her house is still standing, the flames destroyed her wood fence, back yard and Jacuzzi, and smoke damage left the house uninhabitable.

That was on Oct. 25. She went to her cousin's house in Highland and was evacuated a second time, then to a third house, and was evacuated again.

By Halloween, she was resting in a nearby hotel room paid for by insurance, her dad was safe with relatives, and her dog and cat were boarded at a pet spa.

She regrets that some of her neighbors lost their houses and others returned to find that valuables had been looted.

"We were close-knit in this neighborhood before the fire, but now we really are," she said. "There's nothing like watching the homes of people you love burn before you."