Deputies, Forest Service officer recount trauma of escape from Borel Fire

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) – Three of the four law enforcement officers who barely escaped with their lives on July 26 when the Borel Fire surrounded them just east of Havilah got together and told their stories for the first time Friday.

U.S. Forest Service Officer Ty Davis, Kern County Sheriff’s Deputy Brandon Steffins and Sheriff’s Senior Deputy Bobby Gafford, along with a deputy trainee who accompanied Gafford, were on a dirt road about a mile up the mountain from the historic mining town, trying to get residents to evacuate. Then, the fire took a fast and dramatic turn and came at them, blocking their only way to safety.

“We got turned around (by the fire) and headed back up (the hill), got to the end of the road and there was fire everywhere by that point,” Ty Davis, with the U.S. Forest Service said. “So we got to the top and we were radioing to get air drops – water, retardant, whatever we could get to help cool the area.”

The smoke was too dense for the helicopter to get close enough. With their options diminishing, Davis went to his vehicle to see what he had in the way of fireproof jackets and emergency blanket shelters. He didn’t have enough to go around, but he passed out what he had to the others.

“Officer Davis had the two-man shelters,” Steffins said. “Well, we were going to make them two-man shelters.”

Then, overhead, a terrifying, moving swirl of fire.

“I don’t see a fire tornado every day,” said Steffins. “I saw one that day.”

They heard it too, like a jet engine directly overhead

“I thought it was helicopters or some sort of aircraft coming in to do the drops that we had requested,” Gafford said. “(Davis) realized it’s just the fire that we were hearing, not aircraft or helicopters.”

A sheriff’s department lieutenant came on the radio and told them, if all else failed, to create a back burn with road flares and step into the black, burned out area.

“We were very close to that moment,” Steffins said. “We all had the flares ready and we were about to do it.  Luckily we didn’t have to resort to that. That was a last resort type of thing.”

They were trying to decide where to light the flares, when a glimmer of hope appeared just below them.

“We caught a faint flash of red lights,” Steffins said.

It was Kern County Fire Department Battalion Chiefs Luke Roberts and Marcus Rodriguez, who had braved boulders and flaming trees in the road to make it up the mountain.

“At that point, it was kind of a decision that all of us had to agree with. It was whether we hunker down and start the backfire, deploy the shelters and hope we make it through that or get in the cars and drive through Carper,” said Steffins. “Which at that point had also caught on fire.”

Go for it, they decided.

“I had never driven that fast on a dirt road,” Steffins said. “It was just a matter of either we get out or we don’t.”

“There were several times where there was fire on both sides of us,” Gafford said, “You could feel it as you were driving out.”

They made it down Carver and met the battalion chiefs. Their relief was brief. They then had to make it down the rest of the way together.

“I’m glad I was up there with the people I was up there with,” Steffins said. “If it was anybody else, I don’t know that I would have been able to stay as calm as we all did.”

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KGET 17.