This family has owned the Idyllwild Inn for 60 years, but as Cranston Fire rages, a family friend and some firefighters are only ones there

The last line between Josh White and the Idyllwild Inn has, it’s possible, melted away.

White, the inn’s prodigal son, abandoned his family’s business Wednesday afternoon to escape the encroaching flames of the Cranston Fire, joining his wife and three children in Hemet. But, White said, he left the vacation spot in good hands: a close friend decided to stay — hunkering down inside the Idyllwild Inn — and promised to keep him updated.

But with the fire stretching into its third day, scorching 7,500 acres and displacing residents in the San Jacinto Mountains, the cell towers have slowly lost power, increasingly cutting the idyllic communities there off from the rest of the world.

“I think his phone is dead,” White, 39, said of his friend’s cell. “I haven’t heard from him in a while.”

The Idyllwild Inn, one of only a handful of lodges in the small town, has been in White’s family for 60 years. He grew up there, made quick friends with the kids his age who came up with their parents for the weekend, did chores there.

“We have a playground and eventually one of the kids would ask if you wanted to play,” White said Thursday while staying in the Hemet home of friends who are on vacation. “Sometimes they’d come back and you’d be, ‘OK, I guess we’re friends again.”

White eventually left home.

He went to Biola University, in La Mirada, where he met his future wife, Emily, during orientation. The couple moved to Orange. Emily jot a job as a nurse at UC Irvine’s children’s hospital while he studied for his master’s of business administration degree. Life was good.

But then, 14 years ago, with the couple’s first child having just been born and White not liking his job prospects, his parents came to him with an offer: take over the inn.

“I was hesitant at first,” White said, “I had more things I wanted to do in life.

“But we talked about it,” he added, “and decided it would be a much better situation for our family.”

Now, the lodge is his. Emily White gives aid to hikers who hurt themselves on the Pacific Crest Trail. The couple’s teenage son bundles wood, the second son stacks the wood and the daughter picks up trash.

“It was the best decision we’ve made,” White said.

And now it’s threatened – and possibly the Whites’ livelihood.

The inn and the family were set up for a big weekend: A wedding was planned, with all the cabins rented out, which typically brings in between $15,000 and $18,000. Josh and Emily White also just paid off their house, which is threatened too, and were planning to leave Sunday for a five-day celebratory trip to Mexico.

Now, the weekend guests are getting refunds and the trip to Mexico is up in the air.

And the only folks staying at the inn are White’s friend and a cluster of haggard firefighters needing a place to rest. The fire is relentless — and no one knows what it will destroy next.

“It’s a special place,” White said of the town he grew up in. “Hopefully it’s still there when we return.”

Unfortunately, with the line dead, he may not soon find out.