Deputies ordered John Getty and his family to evacuate moments before the wildfire took aim for their property.

"It was an emotional roller coaster in that regard," said Getty.

He took his family to safety and headed into town.

That's when he received a voice mail from his neighbor who stayed behind.

"Hey John I just got out of there, Mike and I took off and the fire was 500 yards behind us, the whole mountain is going up," the voicemail said.

For days John and his family could only wait and wonder, little did they know that they were among the lucky.

"You look around and all of the trees are gone and the ones that still have needles on them are badly damaged, any equipment that was outside is completely gone yet for some reason this structure survived, it's awe inspiring," Getty added.

Most of Getty’s neighbors weren’t as lucky as he was.

"Frankly I have a bit of survivors guilt...I feel badly for the neighbors who have lost their homes and it feels almost guilty that I can enjoy my bed at night but I look around and think about all of the things that I could have lost that are still here," Getty mentioned.

His family credits their good fortune not only to luck, but to pre-planning how to use flame retardant materials when they built there house

"We put in a lot of effort to try and improve the chances of survivability of the house, we made a few obvious mistakes that we see now but clearly construction materials made a huge impact, the neighbors house had asphalt shingles on it and wood siding and it's completely gone," Getty concluded.

"You know this house was surrounded by fire and yet it was safe because of the materials they used and the defensible space and inflammable material they had around it,” said Marilyn Krause, a Public Information Officer.

But even though Getty and his family are safe they won't soon forget the fiery hell that came calling last week.