An off-duty firefighter rescued a mother and her little boy from a raging house fire Tuesday in Fairfield, California.
John Kresha, a captain with the American Canyon Fire Department, was driving his daughter to daycare Tuesday at about 11:45 a.m. As they were driving through Fairfield, "I happened to look over and see what looked like a smoke column from a structure fire," Kresha said.
He followed the smoke to a house with a fully involved garage, on which the roll-up aluminum door had already melted away. "It was hot when I got there so it had been burning for a while," Kresha said.
Kresha told his five-year-old daughter to stay put and ran to help.
Neighbors had gotten out garden hoses and called 911, but they didn't know if anyone was inside the burning house.
Kresha started breaking through the locked security screen door when a Hispanic woman came to the door. "She was hysterical, she didn't know what to do," Kresha said. Kresha asked her to unlock the door, pulled her out of the house, and asked if there was anyone else inside. "She pointed to the back of the house and said 'baby,'" he said.
The smoke in the house was about half way down the walls. Kresha found the little boy hiding in a back corner by a sliding glass door. Kresha called to him but the boy was frightened, so Kresha grabbed him and carried him out of the house.
When he got outside Kresha informed newly arrived police officers that the occupants were safe and the Fairfield Fire Department arrived and handled the fire scene.
Kresha said it appears the family was restoring the house and chemicals had caught fire in the garage. When the mother heard popping noises she opened the door between the kitchen and garage, and smoke came pouring through. She must have done this after the roll-up garage door had melted away, or else the fire would have burst into the kitchen, Kresha said.
"She's probably lucky she didn't get burned," he said. The mother and child were fine, as well as Kresha's own daughter who stayed put outside and welcomed him back with a hug, although her eyes and throat were a little irritated from the smoke.
Kresha said this was the first time in his 23 years as a firefighter that he has ever personally found and rescued someone from a fire. "It was kind of a shock," he said.
Kresha doesn't consider himself a hero though, just someone doing his job, as any firefighter or police officer, or many other people would do. He said the real heroes are those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, like the 343 FDNY firefighters lost on 9/11.
"I did what I trained to do," he said. However, "If I hadn't have stopped I think the baby would have died," he said. "Things happen for a reason. I went by there for a reason, I truly believe that."
