My brother's place went up a couple of years ago. He had fire breaks, so the house survived, but he nearly didn't.
The fire crested the hill, and he said it moved through faster than he could run. Luckily he had his car in the driveway, pointed down, so he could drop the hose, hop in the car, and go.
He should have been out of there the day before, but people want to save their homes, so they wait until the last minute. Sometimes they wait past the last minute.
I worked with a guy who worked in Eastern Washington before he came to us. He was a city firefighter in Yakima. He told me some stories. They sent him and his crew out to protect a farm outside of town. They did prep work in case the fire came their direction. They were not feeling very concerned.
It gets windy there and he said that it was just moments between the time they noticed the fire coming toward them, and then it just blew right over them. He said all they had time to do was deploy their survival bags under the fire engine. Moments later when they were able to get out from under the engine it was totaled and the farm they were suppose to be protecting was just a bunch of burning garbage.
IIRC, there was a video on Youtube about some folks who stayed to protect their house and ended up surviving in the swimming pool. And another couple had a fire bunker built beside their house and survived in that while the house burned.