Chester Griffiths finished performing brain surgery, climbed into his car and drove across Los Angeles to save his beachfront Malibu home from the wildfires raging around the city.

It was a scenario the 62-year-old had been preparing for for years: he had done the training, sourced the fire hoses, and briefed his son and next-door neighbour about the course of action.

Now was the time to put it into practice.

What followed was a daring mission that saw the three men confront the worst inferno in the city’s history to successfully protect six homes in their picturesque cul-de-sac, while houses around them crumbled into a mess of ash and rubble.

As the Pacific Palisades fire worsened, swallowing up thousands of homes and leaving trails of smouldering ruins across thousands of acres, the men refused to back down.

Even as 80mph hurricane-level winds brought sheets of embers the size of footballs raining down, they continued to fight.

“At one point I started packing up my car and then I just decided I’m just not gonna let my house burn down, no matter what”, Clayton Colbert, Mr Griffiths’s neighbour, told The Telegraph.

Armed with N95 face masks, fire hoses and spades, the trio managed to keep the inferno at bay for four days and five nights.