Decatur’s fire department awarded teenager Myles Baker a Live Save Gold Ribbon Award during Monday’s city commission meeting. An eighth grader at Drew Charter School, Myles was the first to spot the potentially deadly house fire July 14 on South McDonough Street.
Myles and his father El Baker were driving home from a tennis camp at Agnes Scott College around 4 p.m. when the youngster spotted smoke. The elder Baker said he didn’t see anything and kept driving, but Myles persisted saying, “smoke is coming from the top of that house.”
It was only upon turning the car around that Baker also saw the blaze. He braked, grabbed Myles’ tennis racket and began banging on the front windows and door.
There were five inside, including two children.
“The woman who answered the door told me it smelled like burning marshmallows,” Baker said. “I don’t think she was connecting the dots, that it was actually their house that was on fire.”
Eventually 10 firefighters extinguished the blaze, and no one was hurt. On Monday Deputy Fire Chief Stephanie Harpring said that an insurance company determined the fire was related to faulty electrical wiring in the attic.
The circa 1920s house, she said, will be razed and rebuilt.
The Live Save Gold Ribbon is mostly an in-house award for city fire fighters and police officers, with Myles only the second civilian awarded.
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