Couple survive wildfire by waiting it out in pool

SURVIVORS Jan & John A COUPLE survived wildfires that destroyed everything in a five-mile radius around them by standing in a neighbour’s pool for six hours.

Pensioners Jan and John Pascoe had to hold on to each other for warmth in the cold water.

The heat of the blaze melted a phone they had left at the side of the pool in the hills above the city of Santa Rosa, California. Mr Pascoe, 70, and his wife, 65, had woken to a “red glow” outside their home and tried to drive to safety but ran into a “wall of flames”.

So they drove to the home of a neighbour who had an outdoor pool, which they leapt into as the fire burned everything in its path. Mrs Pascoe said: “It was the only way to survive. And I kept saying, ‘How long does it take for a house to burn down?’ We were freezing.”

At least 31 people died in the fires, the most deadly to ravage the state since 1933. Hundreds were missing as 8,000 firefighters battled 22 separate blazes that destroyed over 3,500 homes.