By Terry Karkos,Staff Writer
An 8-year-old recalled his fire safety lessons and followed them when it counted.

RUMFORD – Book bag on his shoulder, 8-year-old Jeffrey Aube of Rumford walked down his snowy driveway Monday morning with his mom, Priscilla Parkman, to catch a ride to school. He wore a red firefighter’s helmet.

But instead of a SAD 43 school bus waiting for him, two firefighters and a shiny red Rumford firetruck were on hand.

The shy Rumford Elementary School second-grader greeted his chauffeurs, Deputy Chief Ben Byam and firefighter Ed Carey, then climbed aboard and buckled up.

The special ride and a certificate were the department’s way of recognizing the boy for his heroic actions on Dec. 3 when he alerted his family to a fire inside their Route 108 home in Rumford’s Smith Crossing neighborhood.

“Jeffrey is to be commended for keeping a level head and warning the rest of his family to get out of the home,” stated Deputy Chief Scott Holmes in a news release.

Emergency responders from Rumford and Mexico went to a reported fire in the child’s bedroom at 12:19 p.m. that Saturday at 112 Route 108.

An extension cord plugged into a wall outlet had ignited and caught fire.

“He came out of his room and said, Momma, my room’s on fire!'” Parkman said.

She said she saw smoke and blue arcs of electricity. Then Jeffrey helped her get his 7-year-old sister, Ashlynn, outside as well as his grandmother, Joyce.

Firefighters arrived to find them all outside. The fire extinguished itself when a circuit breaker tripped, Holmes said.

When firefighters checked with a thermal imaging camera, they found that the fire hadn’t spread into the walls.

“Even though it ended up that there was no fire damage to the home, Jeffrey acted correctly to the sight of flames coming out of the electrical socket,” Holmes said.

He said Friday when contacted by phone that the boy told them he did what he learned from firefighters and teachers who taught him fire safety at school.

“If it wasn’t for the Fire Department teaching this every year, I don’t think he would have known what to do,” Parkman said Monday outside the boy’s classroom.

Jeffrey has been through the training since pre-kindergarten.

“It’s always nice to know that when we put a lot of effort into public education, it shows that the kids are listening and learning, and making a difference,” Byam said.

After Byam presented Jeffrey with a laminated heroism certificate, the youngster posed for pictures with his mom and her husband, Joseph Parkman.

“Everybody’s quite proud of him. Everybody calls him their little hero,” Parkman said of the thin, bespectacled youth.

Aube, who appeared to be bewildered by all the excitement, said little, during the ride or at school, where, at his request, firefighters briefly sounded the siren.

He did say, though, that “he liked the firetruck a lot better than the school bus,” Byam added.