A large Georgia family survived flames that completely destroyed their house — thanks to a Good Samaritan who stumbled upon the blaze after his GPS took him a different way home, officials said Tuesday.
Firefighters in northwest Georgia were called at 11:58 p.m. on Oct. 17 and rushed to 28 Rowlls Road, where they found the structure completely engulfed by flames, Lyerly Fire Chief Tim Deberry told NBC News.
James and Larita Burke, their 11 adopted children and one grandchild made it out safely with a helping hand from 37-year-old motorist Casey Sparks, officials said.
Sparks had been playing softball that day in Dalton, Georgia, and was headed home to Concord, Alabama, when his GPS kept putting him on Georgia State Route 114, a highway he had not used on the way up.
“I redid my GPS like two or three times and it kept telling me to go that way,” Sparks told NBC News. “So it’s like ‘All right, I guess we’re going this way.’”
A short time later, Sparks spotted flames near Lyerly, which is about 60 miles south of Chattanooga, Tennessee.
“It was a glow, like a bonfire,” he said. “I mean you could see the glow from the fire from the hill.”
Sparks rolled up to the scene and spotted a teenage boy fighting a losing battle against flames with a garden hose.
“The whole front of the house had caught on fire, so there was no point in even trying to help him put it out,” said Sparks, a welding equipment repairman. “It was too far gone.”
Before rushing into the house, Sparks said he told his 13-year-old son to call 911.
Deberry said Sparks likely saved lives with his fast action.
“He had actually come in, opened the door, started yelling, ‘Get out, the house is on fire!’ and started getting them out of the house,” the fire chief said. “If they would have been in there for probably no more than five more minutes, there would have been fatalities.”
Sparks recalled spotting a little girl in a hospital bed, grabbing her and handing her to a neighbor outside.
“I scooped her up and tried to go out the door that I came in, but it was completely engulfed,” Sparks said. “So I found another door and went outside and handed her over the fence and then went back inside to help get everybody else out. “
Sparks said he was never in fear during those tense moments, but working on adrenaline and trying to stay focused on the task at hand.
“We’re from the South, man, and we help each other. We help our neighbors,” Sparks said. “I mean, I would hope somebody would do the same for me.”
James Burke, 58, told NBC affiliate in Chattanooga WRCB that he’s grateful for Sparks and the motorist’s seemingly uncooperative GPS.
“He was on the wrong road. His GPS put him on the wrong path,” Burke said. “He’s never been down that path before, and he said he knew that something was bringing him down that road when he saw the fire from the top of the hill; he knew he had to take action. I’m so thankful that he did.”
Burke told the outlet he fell asleep in his recliner that night as the rest of his family were in their beds. He said he woke up to a stranger yelling at him in his living room.
“The next thing I know, some guy was telling me in my living room, ‘Hey, you’ve got to get out of here. Your house is on fire,” he told WRCB.
Sparks said he can laugh now at the frustration he felt in the moment on that late night of Oct. 17. Now Sparks believes a divine hand was working OT to put him on that road through Lyerly.
“Now I see it, I wasn’t putting two and two together at the time,” he joked. “I was seeing we had three hours to drive and I guess we’re going this way.”