By Ellen Yan
Newsday
VALLEY STREAM, N.Y. — She was “cool and collected” in a hot situation. A 10-year-old girl woke up to a fire Monday, alerted her mother and spoke to 911, Valley Stream fire officials said.
The family’s apartment exit on the first floor was blocked when flames started in the kitchen of their Hawthorne Avenue home about 6:30 a.m., so the girl, her two younger siblings and their mother escaped through the window of another room, said Gene O’Brien, second assistant chief of the Valley Stream fire department.
“Because of her, they got everybody out,” O’Brien said. “The little girl did a great job.”
The 10-year-old, Diana Loveras, said she didn’t feel panicky at all and that the worst part was trying to avoid getting burned by the heater near the window of her parents’ bedroom as she escaped.
“I was only a little worried, but besides that nothing bothered me. We went out in our pajamas and it was freezing,” Diana said.
“My parents have told me that they were so proud of me. And my siblings thanked me for waking them up so they could escape.”
In the upstairs apartment, a couple and their two children also smelled smoke and rushed out the front door before 75 firefighters from four departments arrived to quickly put out the blaze, the chief said.
The fire damage was confined primarily to the kitchen and dining room on the first floor, but the fire displaced four adults and five children, including Diana’s sister, 7, and brother, 5, authorities said. The American Red Cross arranged temporary housing and gave them funds for food and clothing.
The 911 operator had said a little girl gave the vital information like a pro, O’Brien said, adding she stated: “My kitchen’s on fire. Everybody’s out of the house.”
He got a taste of the heroine’s matter-of-factness himself at the scene when he questioned her for his own fire report.
“For a 10-year-old, she was very articulate — ‘I woke up, I smelled the smoke,’ ” O’Brien said she told him.
Her father was already at work, so the girl woke up her mother, O’Brien said. The mother did not speak English well, but she called 911 and had her daughter speak, the chief said.
The fire marshal’s office is investigating the cause of the fire, but it does not appear suspicious, O’Brien said.
No one was seriously injured, but Diana felt a little sick from smoke inhalation Monday night and was taken to Mercy Medical Center in Rockville Centre, where she was recovering and expected to leave in a few hours.
“I’m feeling OK,” she texted from the hospital late Monday night.
Her father, Alex Loveras, credits her with saving the family. He said he and his wife taught the children what to do in emergencies and that his daughter remembered what firefighters in school taught her.
“She was prepared,” he said.
The reward? A dinner, possibly sushi, one of her favorites, he said.
Noting that the kitchen was destroyed, Diana said of dinner: “I think that’s a good reward.”
O’Brien said he would talk to the Valley Stream mayor about recognizing the girl’s “awesome job.”
“I think she definitely deserves something,” he said. “For a 10-year-old girl, she was calm, cool and collected. ”
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