A tense 48 hours

Patty Darling hadn't slept in two days.

"I've just been on fire alert," Darling said.

The first 24 hours were spent monitoring the Buckweed fire as it quickly made its way from its point of origin near Agua Dulce to neighboring Bouquet and San Francisquito canyons through the night as hundreds of residents fled their homes.

Darling watched on television in her Soledad Canyon home as these residents to the north of her fled, hoping her community would be next. As Darling finally fell asleep Monday night, a knock came at the door.

The fire, a neighbor told her, had reached the entrance of Darling's 70-home gated community of Canyon Collection.

"We thought we had seen the worst of it," she said.

Within minutes Darling, her husband and two young daughters had their lives packed in two cars: family photos, the girls' handprints that hung on the laundry room wall, important documents and the family's two beloved English springer spaniels. Even their pet rabbit, Bugs, and a hamster named Sweet Nibblet made it safely into the car.

As the entire neighborhood waited around midnight for the authorities' official order to evacuate, firefighters were able to put out the flames -- a spot blaze out of the Buckweed Fire. "I've never seen anything like it," said Darling, who has lived in this area since 1992.

--Jean-Paul Renaud