Woodbridge Girl, 6, Wakes To Fire, Saves Her Sleeping Family

AVENEL, NJ — If a six-year-old Avenel girl hadn't woken up "with her throat burning" Saturday night, the town's fire official doesn't think her family would have survived a fast-moving fire that broke out in the kitchen of their home.

The fire started at around 2 a.m. this past Sunday at a home on Hyatt Street in the Avenel section of Woodbridge, according to Avenel Fire Official Cory Spillar. Coincidentally, that is the home of Avenel firefighter James "Jimmy" Karlbon, who used to be chief of the department in 2013. Karlbon lives in the home with his girlfriend, Sarah Woods, and the couple's two children, daughter Madalyn, 6, and son Hunter, 2.

It was Saturday night, into Sunday morning. The entire family was asleep. A little before 2 a.m., Madalyn woke up in her bed.

"She told her parents she was choking and her eyes and throat were burning," said Spillar, who works with the girl's father. "She said she heard the home's smoke detector going off, and she ran downstairs to the kitchen. That's where she saw what she described as orange fire in the kitchen."

Madalyn tried to wake her mother, who had fallen asleep nearby on the couch while watching TV, he said. When she couldn't rouse her, she ran upstairs to wake her father. It took a few tries to wake him, said Spillar, and when she finally did, Karlbon said he momentarily lost his daughter in the thick smoke that had already started to fill the second floor of their home.

Finally, Karlbon did locate the girl; he grabbed her and two-year-old sleeping Hunter and raced the two children outside. He then went back into the burning home to wake Woods, pulled her to safety, and then called 911.

Spillar said Madalyn, a first-grade student at School #23/Woodbine Avenue, is nothing short of a hero who saved her entire family.

"Oh, she's an absolute rock star," he said.

What would have happened if Madalyn hadn't woken when she did?

"I think we're talking about a tragic situation. I think (the fire) would have been too far gone. I don't think the mom would have gotten out," said Spillar. "For example, let's say Jimmy had woken up two minutes later. The way the fire was traveling, it was already reaching into the dining room. It could have wrapped around the staircase and blocked his way down. By that time, he might have had to get him and the kids out of a second-floor window."

Coincidentally, Karlbon had just given fire awareness training at his daughter's school as part of Fire Prevention Week.

"She took everything she had been taught, and she used it," said Spillar. "She heard the smoke detector; she knew to get up and alert her parents. When she was outside, she stayed with her brother, which she was taught to do in school — don't go back inside. She waited on the deck for mom and dad to come out. She's a hero."

Spillar said the fire was started by something that had been left cooking on the stove.

"Unfortunately, it happens. This isn't the first firefighter in Avenel who's had a house fire," he said. "Unfortunately, fires happen."

Former Avenel fire chief James "Jimmy" Karlbon with his hero daughter, Madalyn, 6:

If you want to help the family, who are currently living in a motel, you can drop off money to The Avenel Fire Company Community Fund, 346 Avenel St., Avenel, NJ 07001.