Brandon Castro was in immediate danger last January as flames consumed his Altadena neighborhood, inching closer to his home.
It was in the middle of the night when he woke up and knew he needed to leave. As embers flew around violently, Castro saw that his means of escape was destroyed; by the time he was alert and trying to leave, his car had already caught fire, forcing him to flee on foot.
“I’d just gone to sleep and everything was there,” he recalled. “I couldn’t even see any fire and I woke up. All these homes were already collapsing.”
After frantically running down his street and down a couple of blocks, Castro thankfully found a lifeline.
Michael Towers had just left his work after an overnight shift and went to the burning area to check on his home. That’s when he saw Castro on the street.
“The winds were blowing down and ambushed from the house, or hitting my car,” Towers said. “You can hear it in the video.”
Towers, driving through his community after checking on his home, documented the destruction as the brush fire ripped through Altadena. He recalls seeing businesses and homes perish, a destructive path of flames claiming everything in its sight and then, the silhouette of a person.
Towers inadvertently captured the moment he saved Castro’s life.
“My house just burned there. I just need to be somewhere,” Castro can be heard saying in the video.
“What do you need? What do you need? You need to come in?” Towers responds.
“Yeah,” Castro says,
“Come in,” Towers says.
Together, the two men made it out alive. The devastating blaze happened to burn exactly a year after Castro’s mother died.
“I really think the angels were looking out for him,” Towers said. “… And I really honestly think that the way it worked out that she sent me up there for that moment.”
NBC4 was there when Castro was surprised with a reunion with Towers.
“Wait, you’re the guy that saved me!” a gleeful Castro said upon seeing Towers.
The two men, who both lost their homes to the fire, then shook hands and embraced in a hug, followed by a reflection of where they are now a year after the fire.
Towers has since welcomed a baby girl named Faith and Castro has taken residence in an RV given to him by a nonprofit organization.
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