Close call caught on camera: 4-year-old Jacksonville girl alerts father to kitchen fire

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A family on Jacksonville’s Northside is praising their 4-year-old daughter for her quick thinking.

On Saturday, Amelia Jermyn noticed a fire in her kitchen and ran to alert her father.

The close call was caught on camera. In a home video, Amelia is seen wearing a tutu and running around the house as she listens to music from “Frozen” when a fire breaks out in the kitchen.

“Fire. Oh no. Dad is going to kill me,” she can be heard saying in the video.

As if on cue, Amelia can be seen springing into action as “For the First Time in Forever” starts to play.

“He was brushing his teeth and then the fire came,” she recounted Sunday, referring to her father, Daniel Jermyn, who was in the bathroom at the time.

“She was like ‘Dad! You have to see this!’ And I don’t know why, so I was, like, ‘OK, fine.’ So I am brushing my teeth and walking out of the room,” he recalled. “And I couldn’t comprehend it. You know what I mean? As soon as you see it, there’s no way this is going on right now, and I look and the air fryer is on fire.”

WATCH: Video shows 4-year-old springing into action after discovering fire

In another home video, Daniel can be seen running to the kitchen, panicked, and seeing that the air fryer sitting on the stove is in flames. But he said he couldn’t find the fire extinguisher.

“So the next best thing was to grab the air fryer and throw it into the pool,” he told News4Jax.

He explained that the air fryer was plugged into an outlet, but it was not on and nothing was in the appliance at the time of the fire. He said he cooked chicken nuggets and french fries about 30 minutes prior.

“They had all been eaten and picked through,” Daniel said. “I just had it sitting on the stove.”

Daniel said he suffered minor burns on his feet, but he’s grateful everyone, including the family’s dogs, is safe -- thanks to his daughter.

“If Amelia had not come and got me and I had not paid attention to her, probably one or two more minutes, we would have lost the kitchen, at least the kitchen,” Daniel said. “It was pretty close.”

What might have been a first turned into a happy ending for the family.


About the Author:

Zachery “Zach” Lashway anchors KPRC 2+ Now. He began at KPRC 2 as a reporter in October 2021.