‘He’s a hero’: Wynne boy honored by fire department

WYNNE, Ark. (KAIT) - The Wynne Fire Department says a 10-year-old boy is hero after his actions saved his family from their burning home.

The fire started sometime after 4 a.m. on Monday, Feb. 27, in the carport next to Marshall Noble’s bedroom.

When he woke to use the bathroom, he quickly learned something was wrong.

“When I smelled the burning in the house, I turned the corner, and the wall was on fire, so my first reaction was to run to get my momma,” Noble said Thursday.

After waking his mother up, Noble went to wake the rest of his family.

“I ran to my sister and tapped her and tapped her and yelled the house was on fire,” he said.

The fire spread so fast around the house that the family could not use the doors to escape.

Wynne Fire Captain Gerald Britton said the family had to think fast.

“They broke a window out on the northeast corner of the building and got out,” he said.

The family was out of the house by the time firefighters got there.

For his heroics, the fire department honored Marshall Noble at the fire station Thursday in front of his friends, family, and his teacher.

Britton said Noble knew what to do because of the training he got from the firefighters themselves. The fire department goes around schools and teaches young children about fire safety.

“We teach them about 911. We teach them about knowing their address. We teach them how to exit the structure through doors, how to crawl under the smoke,” he said.

Noble said the training was what helped him on Monday.

“The ways to escape and what to do,” he said. “The escape part is the main part that helped us.”

Despite the fire station being less than five minutes from the house, the situation could have turned more tragic had it not been for Noble.

“If he had not woken up and gone to use the bathroom, they probably would have all died,” Britton said.

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