MARYSVILLE — High school senior Matt Tochterman had a good excuse for not turning in his homework Tuesday. He was too busy helping victims of a house fire Monday night.
“I don’t really think I’m a hero,” he said. “I was just doing what we’re trained to do.”
Tochterman, 17, his sister, Ashley, 18, and two friends, Lauren Kono, 17, and Michael Brown, 15 — all Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office Explorers — were the first on the scene of a house fire in Marysville on Monday.
Most of the time the Explorers direct traffic at funerals or perform minor tasks. The volunteers dream of careers serving the community.
The Explorer team was driving home from a police-training class when they saw the fire. Firefighters and full-time police officers were on the way, but the volunteers knew they had to act.
“Wow. OK. We’ve got to do something,” Brown, a sophomore at Archbishop Thomas J. Murphy High School, recalled. “The flames were enormous.”
The people who lived in the home — an elderly man who is a wheelchair-bound double amputee, and a woman, 82 — were out in the cold rain. They were dangerously close to the flames.
“My first thought was getting the people to safety,” said Ashley Tochterman, a freshman at the University of Washington’s Bothell campus.
The Explorers sprang into action.
First they moved the people away from the fire. Then they got extra clothes out of their car to warm the pair up.
The man and the woman were shivering, and the man said his tongue was swelling. Matt Tochterman, a senior also at Archbishop Murphy, knew from his Explorer training that the man was going into shock.
“I recognized the symptoms,” he said.
With the help of firefighters, they carried the two people over fire hoses to a gas station across the street, Ashley Tochterman said.
They helped calm down a third, younger man, who also lived in the home. A fourth resident arrived later.
“They saw a need and they stepped in and did what they’re trained to do. It’s pretty cool,” Marysville Fire District Deputy Chief Jerry Jacobsen said.
Matt Tochterman, dressed in his Explorer uniform, then stepped onto Smokey Point Boulevard to direct traffic.
The four stayed at the fire for about 90 minutes until paramedics were able to help the people who were displaced.
“We didn’t want to leave until we knew that everything was under control,” Matt Tochterman said.
Snohomish County Red Cross volunteers helped find the people clothes and a warm place to spend the night, officials said.
No firefighters were hurt battling the blaze, Marysville Fire District spokeswoman Stephanie Price said.
“Really if it weren’t for these Explorers, things really could have been different,” she said. “We’re thankful, very thankful, that they were quick-thinking and very actively helped out.”
A Snohomish County fire marshal determined an improperly installed wood stove started the blaze just before 9:30 p.m. in the 15200 block of Smokey Point Boulevard, Price said. The fire caused about $100,000 in damage.
Explorers typically are not called into dangerous situations, said sheriff’s deputy Rich Dimaio, an Explorer adviser.
Had Dimaio been sent to the fire with an Explorer in his patrol car, the situation would have been different, he said.
“They would have stayed in the car,” Dimaio said.
Still, the four Explorers acted exactly the way they’re supposed to, he said.
“They’re heroic,” he said. “And that’s the way these kids always act.”
Before leaving, the woman whose home caught fire told the young people that she was thankful, Kono said.
“She wouldn’t let go of me. We held each other for like two minutes,” the Cascade High School senior said. “It was heartwarming.”
Reporter Jackson Holtz: 425-339-3437 or jholtz@heraldnet.com.
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