On the night of Sunday, October 8, 2017, a wildfire closed in on Safari West, a wildlife preserve near Santa Rosa in Sonoma County, and its 77-year-old owner, Peter Lang, remained there after officials ordered an evacuation. KQED reported that Lang said officials wanted everyone to evacuate and that he could not leave. Lang worked late into the night fighting small fires amid 1,000 animals or more. He stated that by dawn, he hadn't lost a single animal, bird, or building at the preserve, even though his own house had burned down a mile down the road. That account comes from Lang himself and has not been independently audited.
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