Lake Wales family rebuilding after apartment fire destroys everything

Child saves siblings from apartment fire

FOX 13's Danielle Zulkosky reports.

LAKE WALES, Fla. - It has been two and a half weeks since an apartment fire in Lake Wales was called a total loss for a single mom and her three kids.

Rana Harb is just thankful that she still has her kids, and she credits her 12-year-old son for saving his two siblings when the fire got out of control.

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What they're saying:

"The smoke's getting bad, smoke's going bad. And he said, 'okay, let's go outside,'" Harb said. "So, he gathered both of them and took them out the door with the neighbor."

The boy also tried to fight the fire himself.

"He ran back in with the neighbor," Harb said. "That's when they started using the fire extinguishers and nothing was stopping the flames." 

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The fire was an accident started by a candle. She was not home, and the kids were with a babysitter. A neighbor and her son tried to put the fire out, but the extinguisher in their apartment did not work.

By the time they grabbed other fire extinguishers, it was too late.

"My 12-year-old is my hero. He said, 'Mom, I didn't save anything,'" Harb said. "And I said, ‘but you still saved me. You saved your siblings. And you guys, you saved yourself.’"

The backstory:

The family was in that apartment after escaping a dangerous living situation.

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"I started in this apartment with literally a blow-up mattress for my children and a trash bag full of clothes to use as a pillow as I slept on the floor," Harb said. 

Now having to restart again, the family is split up, some of the family is in the motel, because there are no homeless shelters in Lake Wales, which would be near her kids' schools.

Two of the kids are living with their father in his home. 

"They already went through enough trauma," Harb said. "They don't need to go through more trauma of switching schools."

Dig deeper:

She said through it all, the owner of the motel she is living in has been her saving grace – which gave her three nights free.

"The Lord has called us to be good stewards, you know, and my motel is actually a ministry," said Ileana Szasz, the Motel by Stedricks owner. "If she ever goes through any hardship financially, we're going to be there to back her up."

The family is still rebuilding. Their room was full of donations from people in the community after being left with just the clothes on their backs.