BENTON -- Two people in Columbia County are being credited with saving their neighbor after his home caught fire. Flames hit the mobile home Tuesday in Benton, and on Wednesday a fire marshal was on scene investigating a cause.
One man was inside the home at the time. Jillian Christie and her boyfriend Jared Curtis live behind the mobile home. They had just gotten home when they saw the smoke.
"I hopped over the fence and ran inside and asked him if he needed help. He said 'yes, I don't know what to do.' So I started grabbing buckets of water out of the sink and threw them onto the fire," said Curtis.
"I ran in and called my dad and called 911," said Christie.
After Christie called 911, her dad grabbed the fire extinguisher that was sitting on their back porch. He started putting out the fire until firefighters were able to arrive.
"He's like, oh my gosh I don't want this to burn to the ground, so he just picks up the hose and starts squirting," said Christie.
Investigators said using the fire extinguisher helped contain the fire until firefighters got there. Christie and Curtis said they just wanted to help their neighbor.
"He had been in the smoke for a really long time. He had black running down his face, and he did not look very good at all," said Christie.
"I'm just glad we could get there in time for him to be safe, and luckily no one else was in the house," said Curtis.
"I just did what I would expect my neighbor to do. I just wanted to make sure everybody was safe. I didn't really care about anything else at that point," added Christie.
The man who lives in the mobile home said his soldering iron fell off a window sill onto a bed and caught fire. As of now, the official cause of the fire is under investigation.