A Texas family is now homeless after a devastating house fire that erupted at their Waco residence late Friday but are grateful they escaped alive thanks to an alert teenage girl.
17-year-old Bianca Rivera was the only resident at the home who kept her smelling sense as the three other family members were all experiencing anosmia due to Covid-infections.
At around 2 a.m. Friday, Rivera smelt smoke emanating from the hallway and rushed to wake the other residents sleeping in their rooms.
“I started smelling burnt plastic and that’s when I got more alert and ran outside of my room and I couldn’t even pass the hallway because it was filled with so much smoke,” she recalls.
“I knew I had to wake everyone up. I opened the back door and I got everyone out one by one.”
The teen didn’t forget the family’s four dogs and brought them outside.
“Honestly. It was just me protecting my family and getting them to save it didn’t matter to me if I was going to get hurt or burned as long as I got them out safe and sound I was going to be fine,” Rivera said.
The family’s now staying at a motel room after losing everything in the fire.
