Swampscott Firefighter's Little Girl Saves Family From House Fire
SWAMPSCOTT (CBS) – Fire gutted a firefighter's home in Swampscott early Tuesday morning, but a family of five inside escaped safely, thanks to a little girl.
Flames broke out in the two-story house on Humphrey Street just before 5 a.m. and quickly tore through the roof.
The firefighter's 6-year-old daughter alerted her mother and father that their house was on fire and they managed to get outside with their two other sons with the fire right behind them.
"Probably with just no more than a minute to spare they got out," Swampscott Fire Chief Kevin Breen told WBZ-TV.
"Oh seconds. It was near her bedroom, so she would have been, I don't even want to think about it," the girl's mother, Lori Pierro, told WBZ.
"I ran upstairs, grabbed by two sons and my husband and we ran out of the house screaming 'Fire, fire, fire!'"
Pierro said her daughter was woken up when a fan in her room shut down unexpectedly. She then smelled smoke, saw fire and rushed to alert her parents.
"If she didn't know what to do, then you know, I don't know what would have happened," Pierro said.
The family had a fire evacuation plan and it helped speed up their escape from their burning home.
"We're all safe. That's the most important thing. Things can be replaced but your family can't. And we are all safe," Pierro said.
It took about an hour for firefighters to bring the flames under control as thick smoke filled the neighborhood.
There's no official word yet on a cause.
"The damage is pretty heavy so it'll be difficult to tell. We'll probably be leaning more towards an electrical cause at this point," Chief Breen said.
It appears the fire started in the garage, spread to a car and then into the house.
Firefighters from Marblehead and Lynn helped put out the fire.
WBZ-TV's Chris McKinnon contributed to this report.
You can follow him on Twitter @ChrisWBZ.
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