The Fire Outside My Window A Survivor Tells the True Story of California's Epic Cedar Fire

About this book

The Fire Outside My Window reveals the story of the Cedar Fire, the largest fire in California's recorded history, which ravaged the San Diego area in late 2003, burning nearly 280,000 acres, destroying more than 2200 homes and hundreds of other buildings, and killing 15 people.

Leaving her doomed home the night of the catastrophe, the author, Sandra Millers Younger, drove through flames and, along with her husband, was saved by a bobcat that showed her the road she couldn't see through dense smoke. With this revealing narrative, she takes readers into the heart of an epic firefight, telling the stories of fire managers and air tanker pilots trying to combat a catastrophe bigger than they had ever imagined, and recounting both survivors' and victims' desperate efforts to escape flames moving faster than fire engines could drive. And she tells the story of the hapless hunter who got lost in the backcountry, with little water and no cell phone or GPS device, and started a signal fire that caused the calamity.

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Biography

Veteran magazine journalist Sandra Millers Younger has written or edited hundreds of published articles for titles ranging from academic journals to trade publications to Seventeen magazine during a career that spans more than 35 years.