It was an early morning wake-up call for some San Luis Obispo residents as flames erupted on a hillside off Bishop Street.
"We opened the curtains right there and looked out, and there was, you know, about 50 yards away, flames like coming towards us," said resident Scott Cleere.
Cleere and his wife, Deborah, were woken up by a call from their neighbor, informing them of the fire.
They immediately sprung into action.
"The first thing we were concerned about was the elderly people in our neighborhood or people who wouldn't necessarily have received a call," Deborah said. "We started banging on doors and before you know it, law enforcement was doing it. Then we kind of watched to make sure lights went on in houses and we knew people were awake, and anyone whose light wasn't on we banged on their window or banged on their door."
Judy Jennings was one of those neighbors.
"That's my bedroom window that the neighbor banged on and woke me up I think around 5 [a.m.]," Jennings said as she shared a photo of the fire behind her house. "I just quickly tried to think what I would want to save."
A few blocks away from Jennings' house, Julia Finnegan says her husband woke her up when he saw the fire through their window.
They worked quickly to load their three kids, all under the age of five, into the car and evacuate, even before the police knocked on their door to warn them.
"We had to take the children out of the beds, put them in the car, you know, let them know, look there's a fire but everything is going to be okay," Finnegan said.
San Luis Obispo City Fire officials say a total of about 575 people from 329 addresses were evacuated on the east side of Johnson Avenue from San Luis Obispo High School to Sydney Street.
No structures burned and no one was hurt
Last October, another brush fire broke out behind SLO High.
The Cleeres say recent fires like that one have made it difficult to insure their home.
"We have lost our fire insurance," Cleere said. "In fact, our housing insurance was canceled because of the fire risk, and we are not the first people in the neighborhood for this to be the case. Our insurance is very high, our deductible is very high, and we are insured, but it would be catastrophic if our house burned down."
Tuesday morning's fire burned about 15 acres.
