MEMPHIS, Tenn. — MFD investigators are trying to figure out what caused a massive house fire in Westwood overnight that destroyed a family’s home.
The fire broke out just before midnight Wednesday in the 1200 block of Deer Trail Lane.
But thanks to a couple of neighbors who spotted the flames and rushed over to help, everyone is ok.
Those hero neighbors say, at first, they thought the fire was part of a Halloween display.
“We thought maybe she was celebrating Halloween or something – it was a big orange light in the picture window – so we were looking then all of a sudden we looked in the air, we seen smoke coming out the vents and stuff. We said, ‘No, the house is on fire,'” said neighbor Larry Dockery.
For the mother and son who live there, Dockery’s instincts saved their lives.
“We ran across the street and snatched the door open – the wrought iron off the door – and we kicked the door in, me and Tim, and we kept kicking it and kicking it and finally we kicked the door open,” Dockery said.
The homeowner’s son came running out, begging them to save his mom.
“‘Please y’all, get my mama, my mama, my mama,'” Dockery said.
But through the thick smoke in the huge house, they were having a hard time finding her.
“‘Where you at? Where you at? Where you at?’ We kept going deeper and deeper, we thought maybe the smoke had knocked her out or anything, but we didn’t start giving up,” Dockery said.
And finally, before firefighters even pulled up, she found them.
“We seen these little white socks walking through the smoke,” Dockery said. “‘Thank God, here she is.’ We just snatched her and brought her on up out the house.”
And just in time.
The flames spread to the attic and were so intense firefighters had to be briefly pulled out of the home.
“We’re thankful for what the neighbor did,” said MFD LT. Wayne Cooke. “They potentially saved their lives.”
It took about two hours for crews to bring the fire under control.
Investigators still don’t know what started it.