Authorities released helicopter footage that showed the rescue of an Alaska man whose rural cabin burned to the ground and was forced to survive for nearly a month.
Tyson Steele lived in a remote cabin in Matanuska-Susitna Valley about 20 miles from the nearest neighbor when his home caught fire, according to NBC News.
Steele said that he accidentally burned the cabin down when he placed cardboard inside the wood-burning stove.
“I knew it was a problem, I’ve had wood stoves all my life. I knew that you don’t do that,” he said. “So, it sent a spark out through the chimney which landed on the roof.”
Steele said he scrambled to grab as many belongings as he could and hoped that his beloved pet dog Phil, a six-year-old chocolate labrador retriever, had followed him out of the inferno, but Phil did not.
“I have no words for what sorrow; it was just, just a scream. Just a visceral — not angry, not sad — just … all I could express, just scream,” he recounted. “Felt like I tore my lung out.”
Steele was in such a remote location that the only way in or out is by air charter, and his phone didn’t work after the fire. He said he tried his hardest to extinguish the fire.
“I’m hysterical trying to put it out, and it’s not doing anything. And I worked up into the morning, into the daylight trying to put out various sections of the fire,” he said.
He managed to salvage some canned food, enough to last about a month, and only ate two cans of food per day to stay alive.
“The thing was, maybe half of those cans, they’ve heated up and popped open, and the smoke’s circulating inside,” he said. “So, it tastes like my home, just burning.”
Steele said he first constructed a snow cave to sleep in but later constructed a makeshift structure of what remained of the burned-down cabin.
Eventually, a friend called in a welfare check on him, and Steele was discovered by rescuers.
Video released by the Alaska State Troopers showed his discovery, the letters “SOS” were seen carved into the snow near where he was holed up.
