Brother and sister rescue two from burning home
Published: January 29, 2007
Fire Department officials are calling a brother and sister heroes after they helped save two women from a burning house south of Seattle early Thursday morning.
Diane Berniard, 22, and her brother Clabon Berniard, 20, pounded on the windows and doors of the house to wake the women up after a space heater in the garage ignited piles of paper and clothing.
“These two really are heroes,” said David Nelson, a spokesman for King County Fire District 20. “They did the proper thing.”
Fire District 20 is considering ways to honor the siblings for reacting to the fire in a safe, levelheaded way, Nelson said.
Diane Berniard had no idea Wednesday night that she would be called a hero by the time sunrise rolled around. She was watching a movie at home when she smelled smoke about 12:30 a.m.
She and her brother went outside to investigate and eventually saw black smoke pouring out of a house in the 6200 block of South 116th Street. They yelled for their mother to call dial 911.
“We started beating on the doors and windows trying to wake everyone up,” Diane Berniard said.
The siblings managed to wake a 63-year-old woman who was asleep in the house. The woman woke her 70-year-old roommate and both managed to escape the flames that were starting to appear on the roof.
As they hurried away from the house, the windows began to burst, Berniard said.
Firefighters arrived on the scene soon after, but Nelson credits the rescue to the siblings.
“If it had been another 20 minutes, who knows, they may have died,” he said.
The fire started because one of the women left a space heater on in the garage after she went there to have a cigarette, Nelson said. The damage was estimated at $300,000, and the house is a total loss.
The women were in the care of family members Thursday afternoon.
Losing everything is something the Berniards understand. The family lost their home and possessions when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans more than a year ago. They moved to the Seattle area to be with an aunt.
“So I can actually understand how they feel about losing all their stuff,” Diane Berniard said. “But if that hadn’t happened, we wouldn’t have been here to help them.”
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