SEMINOLE, Ala. — Alexandrea Walker was settling in for the night in her two-weeks-new to her home with her children, Dalton Baker, 5 months, and Michaela Walker, 18 months. She had just dropped another daughter, Destiny Walker, 3, off with Joyce Rimps, her grandmother. Her fiancé, Christopher Baker, was spending the night with his aunt and uncle, preparing to drive a UPS truck the next day.

For landlady Karen Neri, settling in meant heading to bed in her second floor apartment, and her 2-year-old cats, Lucky and Ashley, were playing or doing whatever young cats do in the evening. Neri’s husband, Bruno Neri, was away working in New Jersey.

It looked like a quiet night along the Lost River in Seminole.

Until about 11 p.m.

“I heard booming noises, I was curious as to what it was, and I went out to take a look,” said Walker in a telephone interview.

What Walker says she saw was the house’s carport on fire. The booming was “LP gas tanks” exploding.

“I wasn’t sure what to do,” Walker said. “I went upstairs to my landlady’s door, near the kitchen and beat on her window.”

Neri didn’t have a lot of time to get out. The fire was right under her bedroom. The kitchen was on the other side of the house.

“I heard something banging,” Neri said when contacted at South Baldwin Regional Medical Center.

“I was acting crazy,” said Walker. “I was yelling and screaming.”

Confused, Neri said she opened her front door only to be confronted by a wall of flame.

“The flames chased me through the house,” Neri said. “The vinyl was coming off the roof. I spotted a clear area and jumped. I knew if I didn’t jump I was going to die.”

Neri says she broke her right ankle in the jump from the second floor and has serious burns on her right arm and buttocks from the dripping vinyl. But the jump saved her life.

She was originally life-flighted to a nearby Pensacola hospital. She traveled to SBRMC in a friend’s car so her own physician could direct her treatment. Neri was scheduled to be transferred to a Mobile hospital so her third-degree burns could be attended to. Her two cats perished in the fire.

“I could hear her (Neri) going on about ‘my poor babies’ when she was put in the ambulance,” said Walker.

According to a member of the Seminole Volunteer Fire Department, state fire marshals will investigate the fire this week, which was still smoking late last Thursday afternoon.

The Neri’s boat, “Forever Young,” bobbed in the river, loosely tied to the dock, and the starboard windows (right-hand side) were melted and discolored. Sides of trees near the deck and pilings for the dock showed char on the sides nearest the house.

Walker, realizing that the flames were spreading, ran downstairs and grabbed her sleeping children.

“I ran out onto the deck,” Walker said. “My front door faced the river, and my front yard was a deck to the river.”

Walker said she had been speaking to a friend on her cell phone when she heard the explosions, and still had it after snatching up her babies. She held Dalton in front of her, and Michaela was astride her hip.

“I went out on my deck. There was nowhere else for me to go. I was on my cell phone, calling 911,” Walker said.

There was one problem. Walker was understandably excited, and could not remember her exact address. Unlike landlines, cell phones do not give the operator an address.

“I had only lived in the house for two weeks, and did not have my address memorized,” Walker said. “I knew I was off Lost River Road. The trees were burning around me. I was getting burned.”

Finally, realizing that the 911 operator would not understand her, she hung up and called her friend, Nicole Ping. Nicole’s husband, James, like most of the Ping family, is a volunteer with the Seminole Volunteer Fire Department.

“She told me he (James) had already left to get the truck, Walker said. “I tried to tell her I was trapped on the deck and burning. She didn’t understand what I had to tell her. The back side of my arm was burning.”

Walker, carried her children to the farthest point on the deck, away from the fire. She says that the trees and brush around her were catching on fire. There was no place to go, except into the river.

“The water was very deep at that point (of the dock). I did not know what would happen if I jumped in with my kids. I knew Michaela could swim a little, but the baby … There were trees burning up behind me.”

Just then, a neighbor showed up.

“A man came running down the street,” recalled Walker. “He shone a flashlight on me. I screamed, “Come and get me!” and he said to stay right there, he was going to get his boat.”

The neighbor had to travel a few hundred feet to get his boat. It seemed like an eternity to Walker.

“It felt like a long time,” Walker said. “I was on the verge of jumping.”

Fortunately, Walker and her children were rescued from the deck. While Walker does not know her rescuer’s name, he’s “Russ” to Judith Ping, a member of the Seminole Volunteer Fire Department.

“He could hear bloodcurdling screams. Any time you have a problem, he’s there to help you,” said Ping.

Walker says that Dalton, who was shielded from the heat by her body, is “just perfect,” but her daughter had some blisters on her leg. Michaela has received treatment for the burns, and she is expected to make a full recovery, at least physically.

“Michaela was not saying much, but she was shaking real bad,” said Walker, who added that as of last week, Michaela was still not talking much about the experience. Walker’s other daughter, Destiny, was not at the fire, and only had a few questions when the situation was explained to her.

Both families plan to pick up their lives.

“My husband gave me a big hug and a kiss when he saw me,” said Neri, who said that the couple hopes to rebuild on the site. Neri said the couple has insurance, and their biggest need right now is clothing and a place to stay.

Walker has other needs.

“RIght now, we’re staying with the (James and Nicole) Pings,” Walker said. “We need a vehicle,” she added, saying that the couple’s 1999 Dodge Intrepid was destroyed, as were the children’s car seats.

“We also need help finding a place to live,” said Walker.

Fighting fires is a family affair for the Pings.

“Everyone in the family is a firefighter,” said Judith Ping, James’ mother and herself a member of the SVFD. “My husband, Kenny started the fire department in 1976. I’ve live here all my life and would do anything for this town.”

Still, this fire has seared itself into Ping’s memory.

“This fire was horrible,” said Ping. “It was very hot and the whole house was engulfed in no time. Our first job was to rescue people and the next to try do do something about the house.”

The fire department was helped, Ping says, because they had an idea of who was in the house, of how many people lived there.

“This was God’s will,” said Neri.