WEST FARGO, N.D. — Several neighborhood children saved a man from a potentially disastrous fire Tuesday.
Devon Johnson, Devin Darnell and Katelyn Simon were celebrating the start of their summer vacation with a watergun fight when they found a porch had caught fire.
“We were probably minutes away from having a real, real, serious fire,” West Fargo Fire Chief Dan Fuller said.
“I smelled fire, then we came over here, black smoke,” Simon told WDAY.
The deck possibly caught fire from a cigarette, which was dangerously close to a propane tank; prompting the kids to get to work with their water guns.
“I was squirting at it and there was sparks and stuff falling down,” Johnson said.
While Simon’s sister went to notify an adult of the fire, Johnson’s brother woke up Terry Myogeto, the owner of the burning deck. Myogeto uses an oxygen tank.
Myogeto called the fire department to report the fire, but the children put out the flames before they arrived.
“They had to refill a couple of times but the pretty much got the fire out. It was just smouldering when we got there,” Fuller told the Inforum.
The fire department later invited the kids to the station for a pizza party and tour.
“I would say they turned into little heroes,” Myogeto said.