PORTER RANCH, Calif. — Photos and some momentoes are all Paul Moriak and his family were able to grab before the Saddleridge Fire reached their Porter Ranch home Friday morning.

Among the salvaged family treasures was his son Michael’s soccer trophy. 

“I thought it would break his heart if he lost his little trophy from this year,” Moriak told Spectrum News 1. “So, that came. My 1980s camera gear didn’t come but this did.”

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Moriak, his wife Mila, their two sons Michael and Max, and their dog Monty woke up at around 2 a.m. Friday to a house filled with smoke. Within 15 minutes, the flames were all around them. 

“From our bedroom window we could see flames shooting through the sky. It was horrifying,” Mila said. 

They got everyone in the car and drove to the nearest shelter, only to find out it was at full capacity.

“They kind of turned us away, we probably missed it by five or six people,” he said.  

The fast-moving fire that began near Sylmar forced mandatory evacuations for Porter Ranch and Granada Hills residents, shutting down Los Angeles Unified School District schools and filling up evacuation centers.

The Granada Hills Community Center, one of several shelters around the area, reached capacity at 158 registered people at around 3 a.m. Friday. By Friday noon, it had reopened. 

“The shelter opened very late because the the spread of the fire and the very quick evacuations that happened to happen,” shelter supervisor Grant Graves said. 

Unable to find shelter, the Moriak family was forced to sleep in their car. 

“It was just so uncomfortable,” their son Michael said.

So far their home is still standing. Moriak was able to keep track of it through his online security cameras. But whether or not they’d be able to move back was far less important after their close brush with tragedy. 

“Everything changed after you have a couple of kids,” Moriak said. “All I cared was getting them in the car and getting them away from that. You learn about yourself more than anything else when something happens like this.”