AUBURN – A 10-year-old Auburn girl will be honored nationally for her role in saving neighbors from a burning building.

Shantel Brochu, whose own family lost their home in that 2002 blaze, banged on neighbors’ doors and woke four people just moments before fire destroyed their Goff Hill apartment house.

Now she’s preparing for honors in Washington, D.C.

The Hasbro company announced this week that the young girl who saved the four people has been named one of five national winners in the “G.I. Joe Real American Hero” contest.

With the award comes a $2,500 gift to a charity of her choice and a trip to Washington for Shantel and her mother. They’ll meet with the four other winners, kids from California, Georgia, Texas and Ohio.

For Shantel, the trip, scheduled for Sept. 21-23, comes almost exactly one year after the fire.

She woke early on the morning of Sept. 30 to the sound of her mom’s calls of “Fire!”

Her parents, Dale and Stephanie Brochu, were waking her sister and three brothers. When her father told her to go outside and wait in the family van, Shantel went instead to the house’s two other apartments, where she yelled and banged on their doors.

She saved four people and their pets.

In the year since, Shantel has attended school in Livermore and stayed with relatives as the house in Auburn was being rebuilt.

Meanwhile, Thomas Poulin, a school resource officer in Auburn, nominated Shantel for the G.I. Joe award.

“In the face of immediate personal danger, this brave young girl was thinking only of the safety of other people,” Poulin wrote in his nomination letter. “The situation, really a tragedy, could have been much worse.”

In July, Shantel won the state award: $100 worth of toys.

Hasbro, the company that makes the G.I. Joe doll, has run the contest for the past three years. They choose one hero in each state, then they give grand prizes to five kids among the 50 winners.

First plane ride

She found out two weeks ago that she won a national prize.

“I thought about all these other people who did things,” Shantel said Friday. “I’d be happy if other people won.”

She’s also happy to win. At night, before she goes to bed, she now feels like a hero, she said.

And she’s looking forward to the trip. She’s never been on a plane before. And while she’s in Washington, she will be part of a VIP reception featuring, says the company, “prominent government officials.”

Shantel hopes President George W. Bush is among them.

“Some people say that he’s really nice,” Shantel said. “Other people say he yells a lot.

“I want to know what’s true.”

dhartill@sunjournal.com