(KQED) - Molly McCalla scours the ruins of the Frey family vineyard looking for her black cat.

The fire rushed over the hill so fast that there was no time to get the cat before they fled. But McCalla has been leaving food where the cat’s home used to be, and she’s seen some paw prints in the ashes.

“Purusha!” she calls, with a long roll on the R. “Mrow mrow!”

McCalla, her husband and their son had about five minutes to pile into the back of a pickup truck and leave the night of the fire.

“When we woke up, I thought we were going to die,” McCalla says.

The main road out was completely blocked by flames, so they had to go the other way — up the hill, down a treacherous dirt road and over seven creek crossings — to escape.

“The fire was like a lion, roaring 10 feet away from me,” recalls Osiris Frey, McCalla’s son. “It was very, very loud.”