I learned about this incident through a family member, who was upset at the time and didn't give me a coherent timeline. The six hours is the time between when they were either first told (recommended? ordered?) to evacuate or when their daughters first asked them to evacuate. So they were ignoring those calls for 6 hours. When they finally left, I know they didn't get stuck in that traffic, so it must have dissolved by that time, late in the day/evening. Their house was on the perimeter of town, and the fire took longer to reach their house. The fire reached the houses of the people you're talking about earlier in day. Being across town, they might have been able to escape by a route not available to others. It's all a function of where were they were, where other people were, and where the fire was. The town is hilly, so it can be hard to get across town or to get out of it.

That was another point on my mind -- the authorities and the media can't address or account for everyone's situation individually, and different people face different situations. The whole thing is chaos for everybody. One house burns down next to another house that goes untouched -- when the fire is charging down the hill, who do you tell to evacuate and who do you say can stay?