Kelowna fire investigators and police have ruled a deadly house fire on Tuesday morning as an accident.
RCMP Corporal Jesse O'Donaghey says they believe the blaze at the home, on Springfield Road near Graham, began in a faulty electrical outlet.
Before police and fire crews arrived at the scene, just after 5:00 am, Jeremy Freeman tells AM 1150 News, he spotted the fire and began alerting those inside.
"When I was driving by I didn't see any emergency vehicles or any people, so I thought that maybe there's people in the house. I wanted to wake them up, and the first thing that came to my head was just point the (truck) horn at the house, and just hold it really loud, and that should wake them up if there's anyone there. It definitely worked, because after I backed my truck up to get it out of the middle of road, and before I got back to the sidewalk, they were coming out of the front door," he says.
Freeman says the heat and noise coming off the fire was 'crazy' and says when he called 9-1-1, the dispatcher had trouble hearing him. He says a man, two boys and a woman, had been inside the house.
"As soon as they came out, the boys were pretty stunned. They were standing maybe ten feet from the front door - just shaking in the yard - so I called them over to the sidewalk. They ran over and kind of huddled with me on the sidewalk where they could be away from all the danger. The dad was just calling to his wife frantically to try and get her to come back out," he says.
RCMP say the woman died in the fire after reportedly running back into the house to rescue a family pet.
Does Freeman consider himself a hero?
"I do and I don't. On the one hand, I really didn't do much - all I did was push my horn and do what anyone should do. But I guess on the other hand, a lot of people would freeze up. I definitely think if I acted differently - a few minutes later - that whole family could have died," he says.
Emergency Social Services is now helping the family.
The victim's name is not being released by the BC Coroners Service.