A fire in a Cherokee County neighborhood destroyed three homes early Wednesday morning and damaged three others, but it could have been much worse if not for an alert teenager.
Several vehicles were also melted when fire broke out in the Hidden Creek subdivision in the Holly Springs area about 3:30 a.m., according to the Cherokee County fire department. It took more than three dozen firefighters from five different stations to bring the blaze under control, officials said.
However, no one was injured in the blaze.
A 15-year-old boy in a basement bedroom of a home on Hidden Creek Lane heard the noises and woke up his family first, then ran outside to alert his neighbors, according to fire investigator Cheri Collett.
“I’m waking up and I hear a crackling noise and popping,” Jaymel Napoleon told Channel 2 Action News.
He said he heard the noises coming from the back porch and immediately ran upstairs to alert his grandparents, aunts and cousins.
“I started shouting, ‘Fire, fire, fire.’ Telling everyone to get out,” Napoleon told the news station.
Photos shared by the fire department showed huge flames engulfing entire homes, and cars melted down to hunks of metal. The three homes are likely totally destroyed, according to officials.
Friends of Napoleon’s neighbors have started GoFundMe pages to help them rebuild. A campaign for the Saint-Surin family said they lost everything in the fire, including their cars and all of their sentimental items. It had raised $4,000 of its $20,000 goal Thursday.
A campaign for the Velardez family has already exceeded its $10,000 goal, and donations keep coming in. The couple, Diego and Rachel, and their three sons were sleeping when flames spread to their home, according to friends. They all made it out safely, but they too lost everything.
The other houses sustained minor to moderate damage. Volunteers with the American Red Cross of Georgia were assisting the displaced families with lodging and other support, the fire department said.
A fire department spokesman called the teenager a hero.
“I just did what had to be done,” Napoleon said. “The adrenaline just kicks in, it was just instinct.”
Investigators are still trying to determine the cause of the fire.
