Brick Memorial Grad Helps Save Couple's Home From Fire

DAHLONEGA, GA -- A Brick Township man one of three Army cadets credited with helping to save a man's life after a brush fire spread to a family's home.

Christopher Harvey, a 2015 Brick Memorial graduate who attends the University of North Georgia, and fellow Cadet Hunter Howlin were showing a third cadet, Yannick “Fred” Uwase Sekamana, around the area about 4:30 p.m. Feb. 28 when the trio saw smoke.

"We were just driving around on Crown Mountain," Howlin recounted in a post on the UNG Boar's Head Brigade - Corps of Cadets Facebook page. "We were showing Uwase around ‪‎Dahlonega‬ and then ... we saw smoke billowing out from behind a house."

A brush fire behind the house was blowing and moving toward the house, Howlin said.

While Howlin called 9-1-1, Harvey and Uwase ran to the house and tried to see if anyone was home. Bill Grier, the homeowner, who had been burning some brush in the back yard, had gone inside briefly and didn't immediately answer the door, according to the report, so the three, believing no one was home, started fighting the fire.

"It was pretty close to catching the house on fire," Harvey said. "We had water in the car, so we started using that and stomping out other areas of the fire where we could."

They also tried to move things out of the path of the flames, including a riding lawn mower.

"We just picked it up and moved it. It didn't start," said Uwase, whose family is from Rwanda but he was raised in France.

Grier came out the door to find the three fighting the fire as the fire department arrived. Grier's wife, Sharon Thomason, a local real estate agent, arrived home about the same time.

"I drove up and I saw flames and smoke and three young men in my yard fighting a fire," she said in the Facebook post. "I remember them saying 'Ma'am don't go in there!' to which I of course replied 'It's my house! I live here!'"

No one was injured.

The three cadets are part of the University of North Georgia's ROTC Boar's Head Brigade, according to the school.

The University of North Georgia is "a University System of Georgia leadership institution and is The Military College of Georgia," according to the college's website. It has more than 15,000 students.

"We talk about our 'Legacy of Gold' often," retired Col. Tom Palmer, the cadets' commander, said. "Their actions in preventing a tragedy for this family are a shining example of what that legacy is and what it does for the community."

Harvey is a member of the Rugby Club and Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity and is an ROTC scholarship recipient, according to the post. He plans to join the active duty Army after graduation. Uwase hopes to join the Rwanda Reserve Forces as an infantry officer after he graduates, while Howlin plans to pursue aerospace engineering.