There’s very little good news coming out of the large swathes of Oregon wracked by wildfires over the last few weeks. But readers were left devastated after one story illustrated the death, destruction, and impossible choices faced by families in the path of the blazes.

On Tuesday, September 8th, the Tofte family went through the unimaginable.

As the Beachie Creek Fire rushed through Marion County, Oregon, 13-year-old Wyatt Tofte, his mother, and his grandmother all tried to escape the blaze.

It had come on suddenly.

Before the fire was upon them, the power went out, so Wyatt’s dad Chris Tofte left the house to find a generator.

While he was gone, Wyatt’s mom Angie Mosso woke up to find the fire surrounding the home with no way to escape.

Mosso’s elderly mother Peggy was in the house, recovering from a broken leg, so she got the 71-year-old woman into a car hoping to drive them to safety. Then she realized the tires were burning.

She had told Wyatt to run for his life but now he was nowhere to be found. It turns out he had run off to hide in another of the family’s cars, thinking he would be safe.

He brought the family dog – a 200-pound bullmastiff mix named Duke – along with him.

Sadly the story just gets worse.

In an attempt to save her mother, Mosso went to the burning car, but couldn’t retrieve her despite running heroically through the flames. Then she ran for her own life down the melting pavement.

Meanwhile, Chris Tofte was fighting to get back to his home to reach his family. That’s when he came across a woman with severe burns in the searing hot road.

He stopped for the stranger and helped her into the car but told her he had to get back to his home.

That’s when the woman turned to him and told him she was his wife, burned beyond recognition.

Her mother had perished in the car.

We can’t possibly know what goes through someone’s mind at that moment, but Chris Tofte managed to keep enough of his wits about him to drive Angie to the nearest checkpoint to get her to the paramedics before getting back into his car to find his son.

But Wyatt wouldn’t be found until the next morning when the fire had charred enough of a path to get back up to the house.

He was also dead, found in the car clutching his beloved dog Duke. The dog died as well.

“He got in there and tried to drive the car and started coming down the hill and then went off to the side for some reason,” Wyatt’s great aunt Susan Vaslev told KTLA News. “I guess all the tires were just burned up and everything, the pavement was so hot.”

Mosso is recovering from her grievous injuries.

“Our family is devastated by the loss of our kind-hearted 13-year-old Wyatt and his beloved grandmother Peggy in the Santiam Fire in the early morning of September 8th,” a family statement said. “After a long search for Wyatt, he was found in a car with his dog on his lap, but unfortunately, was not able to escape the fire. Angie is in critical condition with full-body burns. We want to thank all emergency personnel and people who helped in the search. Our family appreciates the love and support we have received from everyone during this terrible tragedy.”

A GoFundMe page has been created to help Angie recover and assist the family.

According to the page:

“Angie will need significant medical treatment in order to recover from the severity of her burns. Her expected recovery time is 6-12+ months, not including the emotional trauma and therapy needed after losing her home and family.”

You can scroll down below to see footage from the search and rescue efforts and an interview with Chris Tofte before Wyatt was found.

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Source: KTLA News, Salem Statesman Journal, CNN