This cop’s body cam captures harrowing rescue of disabled woman trapped by wildfires

Fiery tree branches fall on his car and sparks flick onto his windshield.

Smoke clouds the road ahead, making it hard to see as he’s driving — even with headlights on and his spotlight pointed forward.

“Mark West is nearly impassable at this point,” the Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy says over his radio to a dispatcher.

The deputy is driving late at night through a stretch of Northern California that is lit a shade of deep red by spreading wildfires. On the side of the road, as he drives closer to the fires, the reddish air turns a brighter orange and yellow.

He’s in the middle of the Tubbs wildfire, on his way back from rescuing a disabled woman and her husband, as body cam footage recorded late Sunday night and into Monday morning shows. The footage was released Friday by the Sonoma County Sheriff’s office.

“While it’s only one deputy’s video, it is representative of all the deputies who helped evacuate people that night,” the sheriff’s office wrote on Facebook. “We don’t usually provide bodyworn camera footage, [but] the Sheriff believes this footage is crucial in helping our community understand how dangerous these fires are right now.”

The footage is from Sgt. Brandon Cutting’s bodycam, according to CBS San Francisco.

As of Friday, 18 have died from the Tubbs wildfire, which hit Sonoma and Napa counties in northern California. Officials at a press conference in the afternoon warned that the death toll is likely to rise. It has destroyed more than 2,800 homes, according to the Los Angeles Times — and that’s in the city of Santa Rosa alone.

The fire is only 25 percent contained as of Friday, according to Cal Fire.

But less than a week ago, on Sunday, as the officer in the video made the rescue, the fire was just beginning.

First, the body cam shows the deputy rushing onto the porch of a house.

“Sheriff’s office,” he yells, pounding on the door.

He swears, coughs and pants in the smoke-filled air.

Pointing a flashlight into the smoke, he shouts at another officer to figure out where he is — and where the disabled woman and her husband are.

The officers find the woman and his fellow officer, and they lift her into the vehicle. He catches his breath and starts driving.

As he’s driving, on a loudspeaker he announces to homes along the road: “Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, this is a mandatory evacuation order. Leave your homes.”

Then he gets back on the radio with the dispatcher.

“Looks like everybody’s leaving — there’s still a few,” he says. “We still need to do door-to-door.”

Sheriff Robert Giordano told KTVU that no deputies were injured in any of the body cam footage they posted.

This story was originally published October 13, 2017 at 10:41 PM with the headline "This cop’s body cam captures harrowing rescue of disabled woman trapped by wildfires."