Woman who died in Valley Fire had no way to get out

MIDDLETOWN, Calif. (KTVU) — When survivors talk about the Valley Fire and the frantic evacuation, they often say they're surprised more people weren't injured or killed.

But a local family is mourning a woman who died in the home she recently bought.

Authorities confirmed Monday that the fire victim was 72-year-old Barbara McWilliams, whose body was found in the ashes the day after fire swept through.

"That was a sweet little perfect house," neighbor Linda Garnhart told KTVU outside Anderson Springs Road. "It had the springs there and the water going by."

Garnhart recalled that McWilliams bought the house with her daughter, who also lives in the area. They had searched for one they thought would be just right for the retired schoolteacher.

McWilliams had multiple sclerosis which affected her mobility, but Garnhart said she was active and independent.

"She had a lot of gumption for having m.s.," Garnhart noted. "She traveled often, went a lot of places."

But McWilliams lived alone at the end of narrow Hot Springs Road, which is at the end of Anderson Springs Road. And she did not drive.

Sheriff's deputies alerted that she needed help, arrived to find the neighborhood impassable, having already been engulfed in fire.

"We had people walking down the street with their cars burned, their homes burned, and no place to go," complained Cal Fire head Ken Pimlott at a briefing in Sacramento Monday.

Pimlott, flanked by Governor Brown, said too many people failed to evacuate when they were told to.

Then they needed rescue, which made it more difficult to get to others like McWilliams, who was unable to evacuate herself.

"We literally had law enforcement officers and firefighters going house to house as the flaming front was coming through, pulling people out and getting them to safety," described Pimlott.

But evacuee Garnhart says many people, like herself, thought the fire was retreating away from town.

"Literally we're all standing there, getting ready to go and watching, but the wind was blowing it away," explained Garnhart.

The the wind changed, and the fire roared onto them.

"The wind was pounding our faces, and the heat, the heat was burning my face," Garnhart remembered.

Garnhart lost the Middletown home she shared with her four children. She doesn't have much hope for the one she was renovating on Anderson Springs Road.

There are dozens of homes tucked into the woods there, but it seemed fewer than ten were still standing.

"I didn't know what to expect," admitted Garnhart. "The stories were that it was decimated, but I hoped it wouldn't be that bad."

Garnhart is saddened to hear neighbor McWilliams did not escape from her well-tended property, now in ruins.

"It was a beautiful little spot and the house had a deck over the creek," she recalled. "But she didn't know that many people because she hadn't been here that long. She wasn't in the community association, didn't come to neighborhood stuff."