A 12-year-old girl is being called a hero after she saved her two younger siblings after their house was on fire.
Annaka Boucher of Orléans was babysitting her brother Zachary and her sister Veronica Tuesday morning when she smelt smoke coming from her home on Fountainhead Road.
“The fire alarm went off, I couldn’t see any smoke, but I could smell it, sort of like a burning rubber smell,” says Annaka. She immediately sprang into action and took her siblings outside to safety. She then ran to her neighbour’s house to call for help.
“If I had have been in the house for two more minutes, one of us could have been trapped inside the house, and something horrible could have happened,” she says.
But Annaka says because her family had discussed and practiced a “Home Escape Plan” together and determined a “Meeting Place” at a neighbour’s home- she was able to keep her family safe.
“I was kind of working on instinct instead of do this this and this, because it had been repeated to me so many times, so I knew- get out of the house.”
The fire started from the toaster in the kitchen. The flames were spreading to the cupboards and walls- melting the light fixtures in the living room.
Fire crews arrived within minutes and were able to suppress the fire and save the family’s two cats.
Danielle Cardinal of Ottawa Fire says Annaka is a key example of what to do in an emergency. “Annaka did several things right, she heard the alarm and she did not try to come back in to assess it to try and put it ... she immediately took her brother and sister outside to safety.”
Cardinal also says that this summer many young teens will be babysitting and having an emergency plan in place is critical. “People will be babysitting we would like them to have a meeting point outside the home, we would like the babysitters and the children to know how to call 911 and for their parents to discuss this with them,” she says.
Annaka and her family will be living in a hotel for at least a month while her house is repaired, but she is just happy her whole family, including the cats, are safe.
