MIDDLETOWN, Calif. (AP) — Ranch managers Don and Martha Grimm barely escaped with only the clothes they were wearing as a destructive, fast-moving fire roared toward their Northern California home.

The couple, both in their 70's, held hands as they returned to their neighborhood to find only rubble where their home once stood. Martha Grimm broke down in tears.

"We didn't have a chance to react. It was here and we got out with the clothes on our back. All of our memories, everything is gone," Martha Grimm said.

Like the Grimms, some residents cried as they walked through the rubble of their homes while others shared amazing stories of survival when more people returned to their houses Tuesday and surveyed the twisted metal and smoking ruins left behind by a devastating California wildfire.

Don Grimm said he was surprised to find the ranch's chickens, horses and llamas survived the fire. But 10 sheep in a barn didn't make it.

Aided by drought, the flames have consumed more than 109 square since the fire sped Saturday through rural Lake County, less than 100 miles north of San Francisco. Cooler weather helped crews gain ground and the fire was 30 percent contained Wednesday. Heavy rain was falling in the area Wednesday morning.

A 69-year-old man whose home in the small town of Anderson Springs was destroyed has been reported missing by his family.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that authorities said Leonard Neft's burned car was found Tuesday evening on the route he would have taken to try to escape.

Neft, a former police reporter for the San Jose Mercury News, last spoke with his family on Saturday evening, as the fires swept through the area.

His wife, Adela Neft, told the paper she repeatedly called her husband Saturday to tell him to leave, but he said he didn't think the fire was coming toward him. Authorities say cadaver dogs will be sent in to search.