Wife Holds Out Hope Former Newspaper Reporter Missing After Valley Fire Will Be Found

LAKE COUNTY (CBS13) — The search is on for a former San Jose newspaper reporter with Sacramento ties who is feared lost in the Valley Fire.

Cadaver dogs were brought in on Wednesday to aid in the search for Len Neft, who hasn't been heard from since Saturday night.

His wife, Adela, fears by the time he decided to flee the flames, it was already too late.

"He just never felt like he was threatened, never felt he was threatened until towards the end," she said.

From Sacramento, she pleaded with him to evacuate their Lake County home. But at first, the Valley Fire appeared far enough that he believed he was safe.

"So I was telling him what was going on, and said you need to leave, and he says, 'Well, I don't think it's coming this way,' and I said, 'You need to leave,'" she said.

She called him over and over every 20 minutes, finally convincing him to pack his car.

The last time the couple, married nearly 30 years, spoke was at 7:52 p.m. on Saturday night. The fire exploded that night, catching many people by surprise.

"The last phone call, I told him, 'Please hun, you need to leave. You need to leave,' and he said, 'I don't think I can get out now, but I'm gonna try,' and I could hear he was scared, he was getting scared," she said.

His escape out of Anderson Springs may have looked like an inferno on either side. After that last call, Neft never answered his phone again. His house is now rubble.

"It's not there anymore, and he's not there, and we don't know where he's at," she said.

The 69-year-old's burned-out car was later found a half-mile away on a rural road with no sign of him.

"Now we just need to find him, I'm hoping he's out there just disoriented, and can't find his way back," she said.

The Neft family isn't alone. Many have posted on Facebook about relatives missing from the Butte Fire. A bulletin board at a Lake County Moose Lodge is filled with post-it notes of family looking for loved ones.