Hero UPS driver puts out house fire with garden hose

HAVERHILL, Mass. — A UPS driver is being hailed a hero after he spotted flames at a home on his route and put them out.

Driver Paul Periera was on the last delivery of his day when he saw the growing fire on the front porch of a home in Haverhill, Massachusetts.

"I came around the corner and I noticed that there was a table on fire," Periera told WCVB-TV. "I just ran over, banged on the door. I told the people in the house, 'Your house is on fire!'" And they didn't know their house was on fire."

Inside the home, Brian Lavender said his wife and daughter thought someone was barbecuing outside.

"The next thing she knows, there was banging on the door 'Fire, fire, fire get out!" Lavender said.

As neighbors called the fire department, Selena Sanchez said she took out her cellphone to record what was going on. That's when she caught Periera's brave act.

"The UPS guy, he was, like, 'We need a hose. Does anyone have a hose?'" Sanchez said.

"By the time the fire department showed up, he had knocked down the fire. Had he not been there, that entire porch would have been engulfed. That entire house would have been lost. There would be no question,"  neighbor Peter Brownsaid.

"I didn't realize how big the flames were until I saw the video myself," Periera said.

Despite the brave act, Periera said he doesn’t feel like a hero.

I think anybody would do it if they saw a fire, you know, act on it," he said.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation. Lavender said Periera likely saved his home.

Cox Media Group