{"id":59574,"date":"2020-09-13T08:56:33","date_gmt":"2020-09-13T13:56:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=59574"},"modified":"2020-09-13T08:56:33","modified_gmt":"2020-09-13T13:56:33","slug":"59574","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=59574","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

13-Year-Old Oregon Boy Dies Trying To Save Grandmother In Wildfire, Says Family.<\/a><\/p>\n

A 13-year-old Oregon boy named\u00a0Wyatt Tofte reportedly died in the wildfires engulfing pockets along the West Coast after he initially fled for safety, but returned to try and save his grandmother, according to the family.<\/p>\n

According to\u00a0The Associated Press<\/a>, Chris Tofte, the boy\u2019s father, drove to a nearby town on Monday night to pick up a trailer with the hopes of returning to take the rest of the family and their belongings to safety. (Susan Vaslev, Wyatt\u2019s great aunt and spokesperson for the family, told\u00a0CNN<\/a>\u00a0the father went searching for a generator in town after the power went out during the high winds, and left before the fire actually started.)<\/p>\n

The wildfire, although 15 miles away, spread quickly. And while the rest of the family was asleep, it reached the home, forcing Angela Mosso, Tofte\u2019s wife, to cram her son, mother, and pet dog\u2014a 200 lb bullmastiff mix\u2014in the family car, reports\u00a0The Statesman Journal.<\/a><\/p>\n

But then the car stopped.<\/p>\n

Lonnie Bertallato, Angela\u2019s brother, said Friday that he believes the wheels on the car melted, and his sister was forced to send her son and the dog out on foot. She then said goodbye to her mother, who was unable to walk far, and also set out on foot, reports AP.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe knew the only way for her son to survive was to run,\u201d Vaslev told CNN. \u201cSo she told Wyatt and the dog to run.\u201d<\/p>\n

Angela Mosso walked roughly three miles before she was saved by her husband, who was searching for his family, but didn\u2019t recognize Angela until he explained to her that he was looking for his wife and son, and Angela managed to reply: \u201cI am your wife.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chris Tofte took his wife to safety, and then returned to look for his son and mother-in-law.<\/p>\n

Several days later, authorities found Wyatt Tofte in the driver\u2019s seat of the family car, with the dog in his lap, and the grandmother\u2019s remains in the back of the car.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t need to go into too much detail, but obviously\u2026he turned around to go try and save his grandma,\u201d Angela\u2019s brother told AP.<\/p>\n

\u201cWyatt ended up going back to the car, and tried to drive his grandmother out,\u201d said Vaslev. \u201cSo he attempted to drive that car, and he\u2014the roads were so hot that it burned up the tires, and so he wasn\u2019t able to drive it to safety. Did not make it out of the fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s devastating. Just the way it happened, and the whole story, and who was lost,\u201d Vaslev told CNN. \u201cAny time a young child dies in a fire like that, and the details, it\u2019s just something that you can\u2019t wrap your head around. And it just hurts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Angela Mosso suffered burns across her whole body, but is expected to survive.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe has a long road to go,\u201d said Vaslev. \u201cBut to come out of that. We all know surviving full-body burns is a painful experience in itself\u2014recovering from that\u2014and then to come back [to] your son having died, and your mother having died.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

13-Year-Old Oregon Boy Dies Trying To Save Grandmother In Wildfire, Says Family. A 13-year-old Oregon boy named\u00a0Wyatt Tofte reportedly died in the wildfires engulfing pockets along the West Coast after he initially fled for safety, but returned to try and save his grandmother, according to the family. According to\u00a0The Associated Press, Chris Tofte, the boy\u2019s … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-heroism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59574"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59575,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59574\/revisions\/59575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}