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What a tear jerker (with a happy ending):

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/bell/20071027-9999-1m27bell.html

Quick-acting firefighters save couple

But for San Ysidro Engine 29 there might have been two more fatalities in the Witch Creek blaze as it roared near Lake Hodges late Sunday evening. After a hose on the engine ignited in the intense heat, the firefighters began retreating. One of them spotted, through the dark smoke, an elderly woman in a white robe standing in the middle of a driveway on Highland Valley Road.

“The fire was overrunning us. We backed up, jumped out and grabbed her. She seemed very confused and told us she was out for a walk,” said firefighter Ed Cormode, who is based at Lindbergh Field. They later learned the woman suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. When they asked if anyone else was in the house, she replied a man was there.

They ran inside and found her husband, frail and in his 80s, in a chair with a phone in his hand. He was trying to dial for help, but the line was dead.

The wind was howling and the fire was running up the hill toward them. “It was maybe one or two minutes behind us,” said Cormode, who helped hustle the couple inside the firetruck and deliver them to a police officer nearby. No doubt, he said, “They would have been burned . . . ”