LAKE FOREST PARK, Wash — Davis Matare is still processing the trauma of one night last May.
"When I see this I'm just at a loss for words," he said, looking at the back of a burned-out house. "I almost lost my life to this fire."
Matare had just come on duty for his night shift as a caregiver at a Lake Forest Park group home. Four people with developmental disabilities were asleep inside when fire broke out in the middle of the night.
"At that point is when I heard some creaking sounds," Matare said.
The creaking he thought he heard was actually the crackling of flames coming into the house — then exploding through a glass door.
"A ball of fire came like a bomb at me and blew me down the stairs," Matare said.
Matare had to kick in the residents' doors to roust them and get them to safety as the fire quickly spread. At one point, he was forced from the home by overwhelming smoke and flames.
"At that moment I thought the whole house was going to come down," Matare said.
As neighbors called 911, he went back inside the house four times to rescue all four residents, all of whom were confused, scared and disoriented.
Fire officials said the fire was accidental, but the official cause is still undetermined. They also tell KING 5 if Matare's heroics had come just a few minutes later, people certainly would have lost their lives.
Matare was recently given a statewide award for heroism by the Community Residential Services Association through his work with Ambitions of Washington and Alpha Supported Living Services.
A husband and father of three, Matare said he considers all of those in his care to be family, and he wouldn't hesitate to do it all over again.
"I'm happy I was there. I'm happy it was me and I was able to get them out," Matare said, reeling a bit from the memories.
Matare is an immigrant from Kenya where candles and kerosene lamps are often used for light due to government rationing of electricity. Accidents often result in deadly fires.
Matare has experienced it himself.
"There is nothing as sad as having memories of people burning," he said. "It haunts you."
Those haunting memories are what inspired Matare to risk his own life, over and over, to get those vulnerable people to safety.
"I'll always remember," Matare said. "It is something I will carry with me forever, and I wish that it never happens again."