Jeanine Aubertin has to inventory what's left of her home on Quinn Orchard Road in Frederick. A fire destroyed it when it tore through the house Saturday morning as she slept. The smoke alarm sounded.

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She said she didn’t know there was a fire until she heard a banging on her door. That banging woke her up.

"I picked up the phone because you never know who is banging on your door at 1 in the morning," Aubertin says.

It was Richard Long, a city department of public works employee who says he saw an strange orange glow while he was on the road. He could have kept driving.

But that might have ended in tragedy. Long called 911, jumped out of his truck and started banging on the home's windows. He saw Aubertin's 80-year-old father inside. Aubertin and her elderly father made out safely.

Long says he doesn't normally take the route that led him past the fire Saturday morning. Aubertin called that divine intervention. She says she wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for Long.

"He came over and introduced himself,” Aubertin says. “I gave him a hug and said I love you said thank you thank you thank you. he told me his name and then he left."