When fires began closing in, they said goodbye to their kids. Then, 'a miracle' happened.

Courtesy of Victoria Phillips-Larson Courtesy of Victoria Phillips-Larson Photo: Courtesy Of Victoria Phillips-Larson Photo: Courtesy Of Victoria Phillips-Larson Image 1 of / 75 Caption Close When fires began closing in, they said goodbye to their kids. Then, 'a miracle' happened. 1 / 75 Back to Gallery

In the early hours of Oct. 9, they awoke with a start.

Sara Spaulding-Phillips, a retired marriage and family therapist, and her husband Sam Kimbles, a clinical psychologist, were being warned by their Hidden Hills, Santa Rosa neighbors. A fire was close and very dangerous, the neighbors told them, and they needed to get out.

The couple, who say they are in their "70s and 80s," heeded the warning. They gathered just a "confused" Mele Kalikimaka — their "ancient" cat, called Mele for short — as well as cell phones and their laptop before getting into their Subaru to escape. However, when they reached the end of their short driveway, a large tree blocked their exit.

Spaulding-Phillips, who recently underwent hip surgery and uses hiking poles to get around, was unable to get over or around the tree. The couple called 911 for help, but Reibli Road, which led to their street, was compromised by fire and downed power lines. They weren't sure a rescue team would be able to reach them.

"We drove back and forth on our road trying to avoid the flames that engulfed all our neighbors' homes, including ours," Spaulding-Phillips said. Fearing the worst, they began to contact their children and grandchildren to say goodbye.

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The couple's eldest daughter, Victoria Phillips-Larson, heard the soft "ping" sound of a text message on her phone at 2:48 a.m.

"This may be goodbye," read a text from her mother. "I love you."

"I thought the text I read was a strange sick joke," Phillips-Larson said, but she dialed her mom immediately anyway. Alarmed, she called her whole family and "anyone we could think of."

Phillips-Larson's son called shelters in Santa Rosa; her sister and daughter, who live in Oregon, called the local news; her sister in Texas and her brother in Switzerland spoke with their trapped parents on the phone to comfort them while they watched their neighborhood burn down.

"We have five children and I called them all to say goodbye," Spaulding-Phillips told SFGATE over the phone. "We did not think we would survive."

Still, the couple tried. As propane tanks began to explode, they heeded the advice of their nephew, an EMT, to keep "moving from black spot to black spot ... (where) there's no more fuel for fire."

"We said goodbye to each other," Spaulding-Phillips remembers. "We said, 'It's been a good life.'"

Photo: Courtesy Victoria Phillips-Larson Sara Spaulding-Phillips and Sam Kimbles.

But when the situation seemed the most dire, she said, "some divine force was on our side."

"We got a call about an elderly couple in a burning area trapped behind a side street of Reibli Road, five miles outside Larkfield," Santa Rosa CHP Officer Jonathan Sloat recalled to SFGATE. "There were a lot of fallen trees, abandoned vehicles."

Sloat's colleague, Officer Ken Enger, had been at the bottom of Mark West Springs Road when he got the call about the couple's whereabouts. As Spaulding-Phillips says, it was there that Enger realized he was the only one who would be able to get to them. At around 4:30 a.m., Enger and Sloat moved close enough to the couple to use the public address system to call out to Spaulding-Phillips and Kimbles.

But despite the arrival of the CHP officers, Spaulding-Phillips was unable to walk down to meet them in the street as requested. Still recovering from surgery, they couldn't get her around the tree.

"Two strong young men said, 'we're coming to you,' and they climbed over the log," she recalled.

As Sloat tells it, he and Enger each got on one side of Spaulding-Phillips and helped walk her, Kimbles and Mele through an already-burned path to their CHP vehicle. They then took the couple and their cat to Kimbles' office in Santa Rosa, where they took shelter for the night.

Several days later, Enger moved the couple's Subaru to safety, and later brought it back to them — after getting it cleaned up.

Photo: Courtesy Maricela Garcia Sara and her husband greet officers after they bring her Subaru to...

"I am grateful that my parents are safe," their daughter Phillips-Larson wrote on a GoFundMe page she started for them, adding to SFGATE that "I'm sure they never imagined having to start over at this time in their lives."

As a psychologist, Kimbles went to work the next day to help other locals cope with their own traumas.

"We've had a lot of training to deal with crisis," Spaulding-Phillips said of herself and her husband, "but this is the worst thing we've ever been through."

The pair are quick to voice their gratitude for family and friends who have extended offers of help and lodging, including their assistant, Maricela Garcia, who has been running errands on their behalf while caring for her own son, affected by asthma. But one of the biggest thank yous goes to the CHP officers who charged into flames to rescue them.

"They saved our lives and we are forever grateful," Sara Kimbles said. "We still believe in miracles."

Alyssa Pereira is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at apereira@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @alyspereira.

