The North Penn Volunteer Fire Company of North Wales joined with the Lower Gwynedd Township Supervisors at their meeting Tuesday in honoring three young people whose quick work helped firefighters save their home.
Keshav and Sohan, both 15, and Suri Shah, 13, were awarded Citations of Heroism by North Penn Fire Company Chief Matthew Traynor for their "quick and incredibly brave actions” when North Penn and other companies were dispatched to reports of a fire in their Lower Gwynedd home just before 7 p.m. Saturday, May 6.
Chief Traynor tells North Penn Now:
"Before the arrival of the engine from North Penn, myself and my Deputy Chief were on location. This is usually the time at an incident where we are trying to figure out what is going on and trying to get a lot of questions answered; however, at this incident the answers were all provided to us very quickly by the Shah children.
"We were met by Keshav, Sohan, and Suri. They informed us all three of them were home at the time the smoke alarms alerted them, no one else was home and that everyone was out and accounted for. They let us know that they simultaneously attempted to extinguish the fire with an extinguisher while calling 9-1-1. If they did not knock back the fire or start the 9-1-1 process as quickly as they did, we would have arrived to a larger fire.
"They even secured the power to the house. Most importantly, they all evacuated the home together and did not go back in for any reason. They gave us the exact location of the fire, too.
"Mr. and Mrs. Shah should be absolutely proud of their children. They did everything right. They saved their home and they saved each other. They're heroes.”
