By FireRescue1 Staff
SANTA ROSA, Calif. — A random encounter in a coffee shop line led to one father thanking a firefighter who saved his family.
KTVU reported that Cal Fire firefighter Brion Borba said he was in full uniform while standing in line at Peet’s Coffee when the man in front of him kept turning around.
“I could tell he wanted to strike up a conversation with me,” Borba said.
The man, Chris Bradley, told Borba that his family was sleeping during the Tubbs Fire when a firefighter pounded on their door and saved them all.
Borba began asking Bradley about the location of his home and asked if there was “a dark Ford in front of the house, and French doors by a bed.”
Borba then realized he was in fact the firefighter who knocked on their door, and the two both began to cry.
“Out of all the people to run into, here stands the man responsible for saving my family’s lives. He told me about how he was flagged down by a neighbor. How he drove up the road to get to our house. How he was afraid he wasn’t going to make it back out alive. And how shocked he was when he pounded on the door and found that my family was actually still inside, still asleep and completely unaware of the fire that was surrounding them,” Bradley said.
Borba said Bradley’s daughter Ava was also in the coffee shop, and he remembered helping her out of the house.
“I gave Ava a big hug, everyone was emotional. It was not my plan to cry in front of everyone,” Borba said.