Phoenix Police Rush to Help Woman and 4 Children Escape Burning House
A police officer sprang into action upon arriving at a burning home on the west side of Phoenix, Arizona, on Saturday, March 6, rushing out of his vehicle and smashing through a fence to help a woman and her four children escape.
Body-worn camera footage released by the Phoenix Police Department on March 10 shows the house engulfed in flames as officers arrived on Saturday evening. After the officer wearing the bodycam radios the address to police dispatch, he runs through a side passage and knocks through a piece of fencing to reach a backyard. There, he finds the five occupants of the house. The officer is then shown helping them climb a ladder over a wall to get further away from the blaze. The footage then cuts to a scene inside a building, where family members, whose faces were blurred by police, are seated. A police officer attempts to comfort a woman who is audibly distressed.
“We’re going to take care of it, okay? You’re all okay. That’s all that matters,” he tells her.
The Phoenix Police Department lauded the actions of its officers, writing that both they and neighbors “immediately ran to help, and together they put their lives in danger to save a woman and her four small children.”
The Phoenix Fire Department arrived soon after and extinguished the blaze, writing that “crews encountered heavy fire conditions upon arrival” but “quickly controlled the blaze to keep it from spreading to houses next door.” The five occupants were “displaced but unharmed,” the fire department said. Credit: Phoenix Police Department via Storyful
