Firefighters battle a fire early Thursday at 550 Jenkins Street in Grass Valley. Sam Smith, 92, smelled smoke and escaped the blaze. (Photo by John Hart)
He's down one pet and hurting from smoke inhalation, but 92-year-old Sam Smith of Grass Valley was being called a hero Thursday after keeping an early-morning house fire from spreading.
Smith has impaired eyesight and hearing and gets around with a cane. But his sense of smell awoke him at about 2:15 a.m. at his studio apartment at 550 Jenkins St.
With the fire spreading from a light fixture in his ceiling, he spared no time in grabbing just a blanket, wrapping it around his long johns and shuffling barefoot through the smoke to the exit.
"I know everything around the house, and I just felt my way out," he said. "I didn't have any trouble, and I made it."
The hardest part was awakening his landlords, Tony and Carol Delgado, in the adjoining house. Over and over he yelled "Help!"
"I had to holler pretty loud, and they called the fire department," Smith said.
And the Delgados were grateful. The fire caused $20,000 in structural damage and left the main house - to which Smith's home is attached - smoke-damaged on the first and second floors.
But the flames were on the verge of burning the main house when Grass Valley and Nevada County Consolidated firefighting crews arrived and quickly controlled the flames. Crews cleared the scene by about 4:15 a.m.
"He was pretty on the ball. He was pretty remarkable," Carol Delgado said. "He's 92, and he's very alert, and he actually saved all of us."
All, that is, except for one of Smith's two pet birds.
After crews doused his apartment with foam and water, Smith's female finch, Mrs. Tater Chip, was found dead of smoke inhalation, but his male finch, Tater Chip, survived. His son and daughter-in-law, Jim and Carol Smith of southern Nevada County, said the plan is to buy Smith another bird, and for now he's living with them.
Smith complained of soreness to his lungs from the smoke and received oxygen-enriched air at Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital.
"I'm doing pretty good right now, under the circumstances," he said.
Smith, who is retired, worked as a diesel mechanic and in a lumberyard for many years. Despite his bad eyesight, he recently fixed a breadmaker with the help of a magnifying glass.
Carol Delgado said Smith is a family friend who had lived with her family for about two years.
"He felt so bad (about the fire), but it had nothing to do with him," she said.
Grass Valley Fire Chief Hank Weston said the fire appeared to start in the light fixture, although that's not yet confirmed.
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