Barry Bonds and Eric Gagne helped other celebrity athletes escape the Northern California fires

Barry Bonds and Eric Gagne were among those who played key roles in helping others flee the Northern California fires early Monday morning following a celebrity fundraiser, according to a wild story in the San Francisco Chronicle.

The former baseball greats and many other sports stars had attended a charity event hosted by Pro Football Hall of Famer Ronnie Lott at at Mayacama Golf Club in Santa Rosa. Several guests were planning to stay overnight at the club and some of them had no means of transportation to use when the flames started getting too close.

That’s when Bonds, baseball’s all-time home run leader, came to the rescue, former player and current MLB Network analyst Eric Byrnes told the Chronicle.

“Barry said, ‘You’re not going to believe this. It was crazy,’” Byrnes said. “When he walked out of his bungalow, the flames were right there, so he bounced out of there, and because so many people didn’t have cars, he was taking them all to the next hotel. He made multiple trips. ...

“It sounded really chaotic.”

Bret Saberhagen, winner of the 1989 American League Cy Young Award, told the Chronicle he abandoned his golf clubs in the Mayacama parking lot so he could give a lift to Olympic speedskater Dan Jansen and his wife.

But the excitement didn’t end once they finally checked into a Best Western. About an hour later, Saberhagen said, Gagne was pounding on the door.

“Eric was yelling, ‘Get up, get up,’ knocking at every door,” Saberhagen said of the former Dodgers pitcher and National League Cy Young winner, “and when I opened the door, smoke billowed in and I could see areas on fire. There was a telephone pole on fire, the grounds were on fire, ashes were flying all over the place, and what really scared me was that there was a gas station across the street.”

Saberhagen said he and the Jansens returned to the car and drove to San Martin in southern Santa Clara County, where they spent the night. He told the Chronicle the escape stories of other attendees. He said Hall of Fame hockey goalie Grant Fuhr and his wife flagged down a stranger, who drove them to San Francisco, six hours away.

Also, Saberhagen and others told the Chronicle that UFC fighter Henry Cejudo broke his ankle jumping from a second-story balcony at Fountaingrove Inn in Santa Rosa. Cejudo denied the story to MMAFighting.com but said he did suffer burns on his right foot and lost his 2008 Olympic gold medal for freestyle wrestling in the fire.

charles.schilken@latimes.com

Twitter: @chewkiii