GPS Detour Leads Motorist to Rescue Georgia Family from House Fire

A late-night fire in northwest Georgia

Firefighters in northwest Georgia were called at 11:58 p.m. on Oct. 17 to 28 Rowlls Road, where they found a house fully engulfed in flames, Lyerly Fire Chief Tim Deberry told NBC News.

James and Larita Burke, their 11 adopted children and one grandchild all escaped safely, officials said. They got help from a passing motorist, 37-year-old Casey Sparks, who happened onto the fire by chance.

The house was completely destroyed, according to the account given to NBC News.

How a GPS detour led to the rescue

Sparks had played softball in Dalton, Georgia, that day and was driving home to Concord, Alabama. According to NBC News, his GPS kept directing him onto Georgia State Route 114, a highway he had not taken on the way up.

"I redid my GPS like two or three times and it kept telling me to go that way," Sparks told NBC News. He eventually decided to follow it.

Not long afterward, he saw a glow near Lyerly, which is about 60 miles south of Chattanooga, Tennessee. "It was a glow, like a bonfire," he said, adding that it could be seen from the hill.

Getting everyone out

When Sparks pulled up, he saw a teenage boy trying to fight the flames with a garden hose. Sparks, a welding equipment repairman, said the front of the house was already burning and putting it out was not possible. "It was too far gone," he said.

He said he told his 13-year-old son to call 911 before he went inside. Deberry described what happened next: "He had actually come in, opened the door, started yelling, 'Get out, the house is on fire!' and started getting them out of the house."

Sparks said he found a little girl in a hospital bed and picked her up. The door he had entered through was fully engulfed, so he found another exit and handed her over a fence to a neighbor. He then went back in to help the others.

Deberry said Sparks likely saved lives. "If they would have been in there for probably no more than five more minutes, there would have been fatalities," the chief said.

What the family and rescuer say

James Burke, 58, told WRCB, the NBC affiliate in Chattanooga, that he had fallen asleep in his recliner while the rest of the family were in bed. He said he woke to a stranger shouting at him in the living room that the house was on fire.

Burke said he was grateful to Sparks. "I'm so thankful that he did," he told the station, referring to Sparks taking action after seeing the fire.

Sparks said he was not afraid in the moment but running on adrenaline and focused on the task. "We're from the South, man, and we help each other. We help our neighbors," he said. He added that he can now laugh about his frustration with the GPS and believes a divine hand put him on that road.