This Time, Early Bird Saves the Family

Austin Burch knew something was terribly wrong early Sunday when he woke up, glanced at his clock and noticed it had melted.

“I figured that was bad,” said Austin, 14.

Austin’s early rising and quick action under pressure saved his own life and those of five others--and the family pets--during a raging early-morning fire that destroyed their Santa Ana mobile home.

Captain Randy Black, a spokesman for the Santa Ana Fire Department, said of the eighth-grader’s calm response to the blaze:

“He absolutely saved their lives. A situation like this, where someone thinks clearly enough to save not only himself but his entire family, is certainly heroic.”

“You couldn’t ask for anything more,” agreed Jason Davis, Austin’s stepfather, who had already left for work when the fire started at the Coach Royal Mobile Home Park in the 200 block of South Sullivan Street. “He got everyone out, including the dog and cat. He is absolutely a hero.”

Austin, an eighth-grader at Spurgeon Intermediate School who often rises early, awoke about 5:30 a.m. in a rear bedroom of the double-wide mobile home he and his family had occupied for about six years. After searching in vain for the face of his clock, Austin said, he noticed flames coming out of a small art studio attached to the rear.

The teen immediately jumped out of bed, picked up his sleeping 9-year-old brother, River, and whisked him out the door. Then he reentered the burning home and walked through a hallway, banging on doors to rouse the rest of the family.

Finally, fire spokesman Black said, Austin threw one of the family’s pets--a black cat named Salem--out an open door.

He then escaped with the family dog, a white female mixed-breed named Rebel.

Six people escaped the flames unscathed: Austin and his two brothers, ages 9 and 5, as well as his mother, grandfather and a 19-year-old friend who lived with the family.

The fire, apparently sparked by an electrical short in the attached back room, engulfed the entire home in minutes, causing about $75,000 in damage to the structure and contents, according to Black.

“We’ve lost everything that we owned,” said Laura Burch, Austin’s mother. She and other family members were being housed Sunday by the American Red Cross at a local motel. “I’m very proud of this kid. He really came through.”

The teenager, for his part, expressed only modesty regarding his calm in the face of the flames.

“When you panic, it only gets worse,” he said. “I didn’t want to trip or run into a wall or anything. I’m happy everybody got out--if I hadn’t woken up, I guess we’d be crispy.”

Which brings to mind one other thing, Laura Burch said: Before, she has scolded the habitual early riser for waking up family members.

But on Sunday, “I told Austin, ‘Hey, from now on you can get up as early as you want!’ I’m never going to get on him about that again.”