At age 7, Gage Hamilton is already something most people never get to be ? a real hero.
The young Oxford Village resident alerted his family to a house fire between 4:30 and 5 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 15.
‘I’m very proud of him,? said Gage’s mother, Amy Hamilton. ‘I was impressed.?
Apparently, a lit cigarette butt tossed into a metal coffee can ? the bottom of which had rusted out ? sitting on a wooden railing started the attached back porch of 27 Park Street on fire.
After consuming the railing, the fire spread to an exterior wall where it burned through to the ‘void between the outside and inside walls,? according to Oxford Fire Chief Jack LeRoy.
There the fire continued ‘burning in the stud-work,? smoldering and smoking, but it never actually made it through to the closet on the other side or the interior of the house.
‘I smelled smoke,? said Gage, a first-grader at Kingsbury School in Addison. ‘The smoke woke me up.?
Thinking quickly, he immediately gathered his younger sister Tate, 4, and little brother Liam, 2, and went straight to his parents? bedroom to tell them what was going on.
‘I woke them up to make sure everything was okay,? Gage said.
Gage said he didn’t go downstairs and check things out by himself because if there was a fire, ‘I’d get hurt.?
Although the Hamiltons have a smoke detector near their back door and the closet, it had not gone off yet.
Oxford Fire Chief Jack LeRoy said because the fire started burning from the home’s exterior inward, the smoke was kept from reaching the detector by the drywall.
‘There was just wafting amounts, enough to create a smoke odor, but not thick enough to trip the detector yet,? he said.
LeRoy said eventually the smoke level would have been sufficient to set off the alarm, but by then, the fire would have been much worse, possibly consuming the back of the house.
LeRoy said it’s fortunate the blaze occurred around 5 a.m. instead of say midnight or 1 a.m. People aren’t sleeping as deeply at that time of the morning, according to the chief, and the smoke smell is more likely to wake them before the detector goes off, as it did with young Gage.
‘I’m just thankful,? Amy said. ‘Ten more minutes and that could have been a really bad fire. It could have done some major damage to the house and to the people in it.?
‘It was fully engulfed in flames,? said Gage’s dad, Mike Hamilton, who extinguished the flames on the porch using a garden hose. ‘There was nothing left of (the porch’s railing) and that’s what really scared me when I looked outside.?
The Hamiltons called the Oxford Fire Department to extinguish the fire inside the closet wall.
Amy noted that Gage got dressed, put his boots on and wanted to help the firefighters.
LeRoy estimated the blaze caused between $3,000 and $5,000 worth of damage.
The chief said people should always make sure and ‘never assume? their cigarette butts, or anything involving hot ashes, are out when throwing them away.
‘Dispose of those items safely away from other combustible materials,? LeRoy.