Of all the lessons Geoffrey Carrio has learned in first-grade this year, one in particular may have saved his family from tragedy this past weekend.

Tracy Carrio was sleeping soundly around midnight Saturday when her 6-year-old son walked into her bedroom and started shaking her.

"He said the house was full of smoke and I needed to get up," Carrio said tearfully. "I told him that it was OK, because sometimes the wind will blow across the flue and back the smoke into the house."

But when Tracy got up to put her son back in bed, she realized that everything wasn't OK.

"The living room was filled with smoke," Carrio said. "I looked up and the ceiling was cherry red around the flue.

"I did what I always do when my husband's at work and I've got a problem. I called my father. Then I got my 3-year-old son and Geoffrey out of the mobile home," she said.

Carrio said her father used a garden hose to put the fire out.

"After it was out, we looked and realized that the fire had apparently been smoldering for several hours," she said. "The fire was above the bathroom, part of the living room and Geoffrey's room. There is a two-foot section burnt out of the rafters.

"There's no doubt about it. Geoffrey saved our lives. If it hadn't been for Geoffrey, I would have continued to sleep until it was too late. If he had been five minutes later, there would have been flames in the rooms and Geoffrey would have been cut off from the rest of the house. Geoffrey is definitely a hero."

But Geoffrey gives the credit to Connie Jacobs, his teacher at Silverdale Elementary School.

"Mrs. Jacobs taught me not to panic," Geoffrey said. "She taught me to bust out a window if the door was hot and to crawl if there's a lot of smoke. I forgot to crawl.

"I wasn't scared. Mrs. Jacobs told us not to be afraid. But I forgot to crawl."

Even though he didn't remember to crawl, Geoffrey did remember to get an adult for help.

"It all happened so fast," Tracy said. "We really didn't have time to be afraid until it was over. I'm just so thankful Geoffrey woke up. I'm not sure where we'd all be without him."

The family is staying in the mobile home, with plastic covering the hole, until a new home can be purchased.

"We'd been planning to buy a new mobile home, just not quite so soon," Tracy said.