PETERSBURG, Va. — Petersburg firefighters are hailing a 12-year-old boy as a hero after he saved his two younger brothers and grandmother from their burning home Tuesday morning.
Ramir Parker, a rising seventh grader, noticed something was wrong inside the house on Burks Street when he smelled smoke.
"My mother-in-law told me that my son told her that he smelled fire and they went downstairs, cause they thought it was his little brothers playing, but it wasn't," said Andrea Parker, Ramir's mother.
The quick-thinking 12-year-old immediately took action, getting his 1-year-old and 2-year-old brothers and his grandmother safely out of the house before firefighters arrived.
"He grabbed his little brothers and he got out of the fire," Parker said.
When firefighters arrived at the scene, they had already seen the severity of the blaze from miles away.
"I was about three miles away and off in the distance I could see a large column of black smoke that was coming from the direction of where the house fire was dispatched," Battalion Chief Braden Peter of the Petersburg Fire Department said.
The first fire engine on scene had to lay down 700 feet of hose from the fire hydrant to the engine in front of the house. Complicating their efforts were live power lines that had caught fire.
"They were on fire across the front yard and across the street," Peter said.
It took firefighters about 20 minutes to get the fire under control, which had spread quickly through multiple floors of the home.
Petersburg Fire Chief Wayne Hoover praised Ramir's actions, saying he likely saved lives.
"A 12-year-old knew his house was on fire, took time, got his 1-year-old and 2-year-old brother out of the house, made sure his grandmother was out, that's things you would expect out of an adult. This 12-year-old stepped up and saved three lives today, and we as the Petersburg Fire Department could not be prouder of him," Hoover said.
"I thoroughly believe with the amount of fire and as quick as it went up, that this young man did save some lives today," he added.
Fire investigators have ruled the cause of the fire as accidental, due to an electrical issue downstairs.
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