EAGLE -- There were many close calls in the Eagle foothills Thursday, with both life and property in the path of a fast moving wildfire.
We spoke with two people who call themselves lucky.
Just off of Eagle Road is the furthest east the Highway 16 Fire reached. And even though the fire died down and was stopped at this location, it doesn't mean that the homes in the area had any easier of a fight against the fire.
"I thought we were safe, but I knew it was going to switch, it always does. It doesn't stay that direction for very long," said Ed Camp.
From his lookout on a hill across from his home, Ed Camp says the fire began to move a lot faster towards his home than he thought.
"By the time I got back from there to here, it was already here," said Camp. "It was just blowing, it was very fierce. It was so smokey I couldn't see flames, quite honestly. I never saw flames it was so smokey. And the ash was coming down like rain."
With smoke surrounding him, breathing was beyond difficult.
"The smoke was so thick. I literally, I couldn't see, and I barely made it back into that door," said Camp.
The fire surrounded his home on the north and on the south.
On the north, it destroyed a shed and his daughter's car, purchased just two weeks ago.
A friend of his, a man by the name of Jeff Smith, came with a front end loader came to his rescue.
"This was after it pretty much swept through, but it was still burning, and he came up, because the car was on fire, and the shed. You can see, by him pushing that over, he kept that fire away from the house," said Camp.
Air tankers even dropped retardant on the home.
Camp says everything happened so fast that as he looks back - it's emotional.
"I think, pretty lucky. When I was running down that hallway, and all our family pictures are on the wall, I thought, this is close, but the house is still standing. It's remarkable. I mean, honestly I thought it was gone. I told my wife it's all gone, and as the smoke started clearing, there's the roof line, it's still, it's remarkable really to me," said Camp.
Just up the road, it was a different problem for Scott Raymes and his wife.
Scott was at work and she was at home watching the fire - realizing their home was in its path.
"She called me and says, 'I think we've got an emergency situation.' She had ridden one of our motorcycles back to the lookout and said it was coming fast," said Scott Raymes.
So fast that Raymes, who stayed on the phone with his wife, wanted her to drop everything and run.
"So I got to hear all the panic, grabbing stuff, running out of the house. I was yelling at her, saying, look just leave the house. Don't get anything, just go. Get out!" said Raymes.
When she made it outside she hit a wall of smoke and couldn't see anything. She jumped in the car and left the home.
"Drove down the driveway, drove the car off the road, into the embankment down there and called 911 and called me on the phone," said Raymes.
Sheriff's deputies tried to make their way up Hondo Road, but had to turn back because the smoke was too thick.
But not too thick for Raymes whose wife was in the path of the fire.
"So I wrapped my head in a towel and drove up there, because I knew she was up there somewhere, and she was still sitting in the car," he said.
With flames only 20 feet away - he pulled his wife out, and just in time.
"She probably had a minute before the car would have been engulfed. The fire was coming up behind that corral, and there was about a minute to go, and that car would have touched off," said Raymes. "We think we're very lucky. Fortunately none of our neighbors lost their houses either, a little bit of damage, but we're all very lucky."
While the fire is out and the damage done, the work is not over for people like Raymes and Camp.
They now have to work with insurance companies to begin to rebuild their lives.
If you would like to help families who lost homes in the fire, you're asked to donate to the Eagle Fire Burnout Fund.
You can send donations by mail or drop off checks at the Eagle Fire Station 1, 966 E. Iron Eagle Drive, Eagle, Idaho, 83616.
