Two village police officers and other residents from the Southwest Alaska community of Pilot Station are being hailed as heroes after they rescued three young boys and their father from a burning house early on a recent morning.
Officer Patrick Fancyboy, first on scene, dragged the father out of the house after slithering beneath the smoke early Sunday, June 24. When the fire became too deadly inside, he and others broke windows and shouted into rooms to find the kids, ages 6 and younger.
The family is calling the men heroes, said Fancyboy.
Officer Clayton Kelly, who helped rescue the boys, said hero is too strong a word.
"It's just my job to go ahead and take care of what's going on and be there to support the family afterward," said Kelly, 28.
Alaska State Troopers are investigating the cause of the fire, Kelly said Friday.
The house in the Yukon River village of 650 was a "total loss," troopers said Tuesday. But the father and his boys — ages 2, 4 and 6, according to the agency — were in good health after a trip to the clinic, the agency said.
Fancyboy, 23, said he was awake around 5 a.m. when he saw smoke coming from the house across the street and ran to it.
He opened the door and saw flames. It seemed like the whole house was on fire, he said. Smoke shrouded the windows.
"I couldn't even see my foot in front of me, it was so black," he said.
He peeled off his sweater to use as a breathing filter, and crawled into the house.
"I go as low as I could on the ground, and I looked on the right side of me, and I saw a person laying on the bed in the living room," he said.
Fancyboy dragged the father, 28, onto the porch and woke him, he said. The father may have been suffering from smoke inhalation, Fancyboy said.
The father told Fancyboy his boys were still inside.
"I ran up back in," Fancyboy said. "It got bigger, more hot. I couldn't pass all the way in, because it was too black."
The father also tried running into the house, but was overwhelmed with smoke and fell to the floor, Kelly said. Another man helped pull him out.
The men stood on Kelly's four-wheeler to reach the windows of the raised house. Bernard Fancyboy, Patrick's cousin, smashed each window with a log.
"We checked the first room, there was nobody," Patrick said. "Checked the second room, kept calling. Nobody. Then we heard a little voice or something, and we checked the third room."
"I holler, 'Is anyone there?!'" Patrick said. "The smoke was still coming out of the house and it was so black. I kept calling and flashed my light inside.
"Out of nowhere, the little boys came to the window," he said.
It was an emotional moment as the boys were lifted out.
"I was shocked," Patrick said.
The Pilot Station mayor, Abraham Kelly, said calls for help went out on the village radio. Several residents responded to fight the fire with hoses connected to fire hydrants. They stopped the blaze from spreading to other houses.
"It was a big fire," he said. "A lot of people were scared about it."
The tribe and the city, which employs the police officers, immediately donated money to help clothe and feed the family, said Abraham Kelly. The family is staying at a relative's house.
Patrick said he's relieved the family is OK.
"I keep thinking that if no one had responded to that, all those four citizens could have been burned," he said.