– Caitlin Wardlow/Marshall County Tribune-Courier || Three-year-old Xander Davis saved his family from a dangerous fire on March 9 after the smoke detector in his family’s home cried out in the middle of the night. He is pictured here, playing out in the sun at his grandmother’s home in Gilbertsville, where the family has been residing since the blaze took their home.

Three-year-old saves family from fire

Family escapes blaze with no injuries

By Mary Garrison
Tribune-Courier Reporter
mgarrison@tribunecourier.com

GILBERTSVILLE – It’s been said that true heroes don’t exist anymore. Those people have never met three-year-old Xander Davis.

In the wee morning hours of March 9, Xander was sleeping peacefully on the couch in his family’s living room when he heard a sound he was all too familiar with.

“He has two uncles on the volunteer fire department,” said Ethel Davis, Xander’s grandmother. “They’re always showing him things. About a week before the fire, his uncle Mike lifted him up to a smoke detector and pushed the test button. He told him that if he ever heard that sound and no one was pushing the button to get out of the house and run.”

It was a lesson the tiny champion took to heart. When the smoke detector sounded its shrill warning, Xander ran straight to his father’s bedroom.

“He started shaking me and crying ‘Daddy, Daddy! Smoke ‘tector. Smoke ‘tector. We gotta get outside!’” said Chris Davis, Xander’s father.

The warning came just in time. The fire, believed to have been an electrical malfunction, started in the ceiling above the family’s bathroom and spread quickly.

“I had just enough time to grab our two-year-old and get them both out of the house,” Davis said. “The fire department responded about four minutes later, and approximately four minutes after that, the whole place was up in flames.”

“My daddy put me in the snow,” Xander recalled of the escape. “And firemens came with ‘water cases’ and put out my house. I was scared.”

The damage was extensive, and all that remained inside the home was one bedroom, on the farthest end from the fire’s point of origin.

However, all things happen for a reason, said Xander’s step-mother, Mary, and the situation could have, indeed, ended much worse.

Xander shared a bedroom with his six-month-old brother, Aston, located in the very end of the home, next to the bathroom.

“The baby and I were visiting my mother, so we weren’t home when it happened,” Mary said. “Luckily, Xander had fallen asleep on the couch that night.”

“If it had been a school night, he would have been in his room,” Davis said. “I wouldn’t have been able to get to him.”

Novii, Xander’s two-year-old sister, was sleeping soundly in her room, located on the opposite side of the bathroom. Novii is legally blind.

“Even if she’d been awake, she would have never been able to get out on her own,” Ethel said.

“By the time I became aware, the fire was running all over the ceiling in the bathroom and out into the hall,” Davis said. “Had it been just a minute later, it would have been all over her room.

“He saved us all.”

Dubbed as a local hero by members of the community and his Calvert City Elementary pre-school class, Xander has set an example for those around him.

“It’s a good idea for parents to educate small children on what the smoke detector is for and exactly what it sounds like,” Ethel advised. “Things might have turned out much differently had he not known.”

Xander had his own tips on fire safety to share, as well.

“Everybody should have a ‘scape’ plan,” Xander shared, echoing lessons that have served him well. “And smoke ‘tectors.’”

It’s sound advice from a very brave little boy, Ethel agreed.

“We’re all so proud of him. A lot of little ones might just panic,” Ethel said. “But he stayed calm, and because he did, they’re all here to tell about it.”