A pregnant woman evacuated her daughters from her Santa Rosa home when a traffic jam held up the family’s car.

Last week, Charity Ruiz learned that sometimes bike is the best option, when her family needed to escape the fire in Northern California.

The woman  needed to evacuate her neighborhood of Coffey Park, but her car got stuck in traffic, and she didn’t want to die. So Charity Ruiz brought her two daughters back home, where she retrieved a bike with a toddler trailer to get her two children out. Ruiz started pedaling, despite being due the following week, and set out away from the blaze.

“I can ride a bike, but I’m pregnant so it was hard. I didn’t want to fall.” she said.

A Good Samaritan, in a Jeep, eventually picked up the pregnant woman and her daughters and drove them to San Jose, at a friend’s house, where they met up with her husband Mike.

Charity said that honestly, she had never been so close to dying. Worse, it wasn’t only about her, but her girls and unborn baby too.

Their home burned to the ground. Ruiz won’t have a place to bring her newborn home to. The name for the boy, Phoenix, – the mythical bird reborn through fire – is one option being considered by the parents.

A Go Fund Me page has has been set up for the family, with well-wishers donating more than $19,000 to date.

(written by Laurie Cardinal and Marguerite Lachance; edited by Jean-Sebastien Gagnon)