As flames engulfed the Pacific Palisades, a man embarked on a perilous rescue attempt, driving uphill amid smoke and flying embers to save a woman and her dogs.
On the evening of Jan. 7, Caleb Serban-Lawler, a Los Angeles-based producer, found himself in a life-or-death situation while helping out on the periphery of the Palisades Fire, the largest of the wildfires raging across Southern California.
“The first half of the day I was watering roofs with neighbors, trying to keep fire out as much as possible,” Serban-Lawler tells PEOPLE exclusively. He adds that he began leaving the neighborhood after sundown “when everything took a turn for the [worse].”
A woman “ran up” to his truck, “asking for help,” frantically saying that her car wouldn’t start as she tried to flee with her dogs. “All I could do was imagine my own mother,” the producer explains.
Serban-Lawler posted unedited footage of this unfortunate encounter and what happened after on Instagram.
In the dramatic film, the producer inquires about the woman’s well-being, to which she responds that she is unable to start her car, parked in her garage with all four of her dogs inside.
Serban-Lawler quickly agreed to help the woman, and the two climbed into his vehicle before heading back up the mountain to her house. In the video, the pair navigates through flying embers and thick smoke, so dense we couldn’t see anything, to reach the dogs. Fires, meanwhile, burn on both sides of the road throughout most of the film.
Finally, the footage shows the two approaching the woman’s car and loading her pets onto the truck. Serban-Lawler tells PEOPLE that while they evacuated the pets, her next-door neighbor’s house “was already in flames.”
As the party raced down the mountain, they passed by horrifying images of burning automobiles and trees.
Serban-Lawler reported that they eventually transported three of the dogs to another truck. “This reporter let me put 3 of the dogs in her car while we rearranged one,” he posted on Instagram, explaining that they had to separate the critters because “he doesn’t get along with the other 3 dogs.”
The producer added that the puppies and the lady eventually relocated to a friend’s house shortly after the rescue, saying, “All 4 dogs and her owner made it out safe, and nobody was harmed!”
And the owner couldn’t believe she got out safely. “I don’t know how you drove; you couldn’t see anything,” she tells Serban-Lawler in the video. “I’m so thankful to be alive. I believed I would die. “Thank you very much.”
“She continued telling me that I saved her life, that if I hadn’t helped her, she would have died with her dogs in her home, and that I was a hero.” Serban-Lawler tells PEOPLE, “I don’t consider myself a hero at all.” “Honestly, I was just doing the right thing, and I believe we need more people in the world willing to help like this.”
The woman, who did not reveal her identity, also published more of her side of the tale on social media.
In an Instagram post, the dog owner revealed that she had been preparing to flee, “with everything loaded in my car,” when it “went completely dead,” putting her in an almost hopeless situation.
“No one was around or allowed in,” she said, noting that she received “no help from 911.”
So the pet owner “ran down the hill in full panic and saw a truck,” she explained. “He actually came up my street by mistake and was making a [U-turn] to go back down as my hands slammed his car to stop.”
“If it hadn’t been for him, I and my four dogs would have died,” she added. “My pups and I will be forever grateful to a true hero, Caleb @calebserbanlawler, who just happened to be volunteering on that deadly, horrific day. 💕🙏.”