kids

The sweet way one dad comforted his daughter as they escaped California's raging wildfires.

 

Thousands of people have been evacuated as terrifying wildfires rage on in California.

The Allen family was among them. The family of four escaped in two vehicles: Mum Whitney Allen took eight-month old Jordan in one car, while dad Joe Allen drove three-year-old Olivia in another.

They were fleeing the northern California town of Paradise, which was almost entirely destroyed by the Camp Fire.

Remarkable video taken from Joe’s vehicle shows the real life horror of the fires – the sky is lit up orange, smoke clouds the road making visibility difficult and the flames burn on either side of the road.

But the video has been praised because of how Joe kept Olivia – who was celebrating her third birthday – calm.

His wife Whitney told KTVU her husband’s military training helped him keep his nerve in high pressure situations.

“He was of course worried. At one point we both thought we weren’t going to make it out,” she said.

Joe and Olivia can be heard talking throughout the video.

“There’s so much fire here. We’re gonna get on fire,” Olivia is heard saying.

“Hey, guess what? We’re not gonna catch on fire okay,” Allen promised his daughter. “We’re gonna stay away from it and we’ll be just fine, okay? We’re doing all right.”

He then breaks into song: “Baby, it’ll be all right,” he sings while navigating his way through the dense smoke and embers.

“I can’t see my mom,” Olivia said at one point. “We should go. We should go back home.”

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“We’re going to get out okay,” her dad responds.

Sirens were heard and emergency vehicles could be seen racing by as Joe continued to keep Olivia calm by telling her he would stay away from the flames.

When the car finally reached the end of the fire line and the traffic vanished, Joe told Olivia they were past it.

“You did it, you did it,” she cheered.

“We did it together,” Joe responded before accelerating faster towards safety.

Whitney posted the video to Facebook where it quickly went viral, receiving more than 113,000 views, 1500 shares and 900 reactions.

Following the video, Whitney also shared a photo of Olivia blowing out candles on a birthday cake.

“Tonight we celebrated Olivia’s birthday because even though we lost everything today and so did my family.. We didn’t lose each other and that is truly what matters,” she wrote.

The Allen family have also set up a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for Whitney’s parents, who lost everything in the fire. Another GoFundMe has also been set up to raise money for the Allen family.

The death toll is at least 23, but is expected to rise. The fire is the most destructive in Californian history.

More than 100 people are unaccounted for.

Fires also rage in Southern California, causing the evacuation of more than 200,000 people. The entire city of Malibu, home to some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, has been evacuated.