A sleeping Kenai teen who was at home sick on Wednesday was awoke by smoke alarms quickly enough to extinguish the fire and save his family’s home.
Kenai Fire Marshall Tommy Carver…
Carver: “A candle that had been lit by a family member was left lit and they had left the house, it happened in the bathroom. It caught something on fire next to it and spread to the wallpaper and then to the curtains.”
He says the 15-year-old, whom he could not identify since he’s a minor, called 911 immediately. As he was leaving his bedroom, he saw the small fire and extinguished it with a bucket of water from near his aquarium.
Carver: “He’s an absolute hero, he definitely performed flawlessly with putting the fire out. And then I told him, after I congratulated him on doing such a good job, especially while talking to 911, I also got onto him a little bit because he’s been a student of mine for the better part of ten years with the fire prevention program and what we tell people they need to do is get out of the house. He said ‘I know I know that’s what I should have done, I saw it though and there wasn’t a lot of smoke.’ He really performed well.”
Carver says the important thing is that the family’s smoke alarms were regularly checked and placed throughout the home, enabling those to wake him early enough to be safe.
Carver: “He actually went through the process of ‘Can I do this?’ so there was some common sense involved there and he was like, ‘Yeah I can handle this, it’s not so bad that I can’t see and I’m not having a hard time breathing.’ He did the work and he saved a ton of damage to that house.”
He says in this case the teen was able to save his family’s home but the Kenai Fire Department still urges anyone who sees active fire or a lot of smoke to evacuate their residence quickly.