8-Year-Old Girl Wakes to Smell of Smoke, Rescues Family From Fire

Kiley Cunningham smelled smoke in her family's White Settlement home, so she sprung into action

An 8-year-old White Settlement girl smelled smoke in her house at 3:30 a.m. Monday and saved her sleeping parents and two little brothers from a fire.

"It just smelled bad," Kiley Cunningham said. "I was like, 'What is that horrible smell?'"

The odor wakened the third-grader, but her mom and dad were sound asleep. So were her brothers, 5-year-old Stetson and 3-year-old Colton.

"I play with my brothers a lot, and I don't want them, like, away," she said. "If they were away, I'd be alone. I don't want to be alone. I want to be with my family."

So Kiley jumped into action, waking up her brothers and then her parents.

"Next thing we know the whole house is filled with smoke and we got everyone out," said Kiley's mother Kristin Cunningham.

They called 911.

Firefighters arrived within minutes and extinguished the flames, which had spread to the attic.

"I thought the firefighters were cool, like even the trucks," Kiley Cunningham said.

It could have been so much worse because there was no warning.

The house was recently fumigated. The smoke detectors had been discarded and not yet replaced.

When Capt. Brandon Logan and other firefighters arrived on the scene, the family was already safe outside.

"That gives us this warm feeling inside," Logan said. "Many of these fires and these types of calls, they don't end this way. And this was a blessing."

Later, at the fire station, the family showed up for a reunion.

"Well, I just wanted to give you a big hug and tell you that you were a pleasant little joy to deal with this morning, OK?" Logan told Kiley Cunningham. "You did such a good job and I'm proud of you."

The family's pet ferret and three dogs also made it out of the house just fine.

The fire apparently started in the furnace, firefighters said.

The Cunninghams are now looking for a new place to live.

"I think it's awesome," Kristin Cunningham said. "It makes me feel proud as a mom to know she did something so big."

Something so big -- from a little girl who knew exactly what to do.

"I thought that I was like helpful, helpful keeping my family staying alive," Kiley Cunningham said.

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