Casey Sparks, 37, of Concorde, Alabama, was driving home from a softball tournament in Dalton, Georgia, with his 13-year-old son Cason on the night of 17 October. His GPS kept routing him through Lyerly, Georgia — a community he had no reason to visit — instead of his normal path through Chattanooga. He followed it. What he found was a roof on fire. Inside, James Burke had fallen asleep in his recliner. His wife Larita, their 12 adopted children, and one grandchild were in their beds. None of them knew the house was burning. Sparks pulled over, told Cason to stay in the truck and call 911, and ran toward the house alongside another passerby who had also stopped. The side door they reached had a lock that had been broken and never repaired. Sparks went through it. Inside, he found a teenager who had grabbed a garden hose in a panic and told him there were people still in the house. Sparks found Burke and woke him. He carried out the Burkes' 10-year-old granddaughter, who is blind. Then he went back in, got Larita Burke out, and did the same with multiple other children — several of whom had disabilities or special needs. The house collapsed. Three vehicles burned. No one was physically hurt. Larita Burke told WRCB that five more minutes would have meant a different outcome entirely: "We wouldn't have made it." The Burkes have fostered more than 500 children over 15 years. They are now looking for a rental large enough for all 14 family members while their home is replaced. An online fundraiser organized by James Burke's sister, Renia Evans, had raised more than $11,000 as of Monday morning. Sparks and Cason drove the rest of the way home in near silence. The only exchange: "Daddy, I wasn't ready for that." "Me neither." Sparks told the Guardian he believes divine intervention placed him where he needed to be. "Everything that lined up for me to be there when I was — how I was — there's no other explanation." James Burke, for his part, acknowledged the trauma but refused to stay in it: "We're gonna turn this page, and we're gonna get on with our lives because we have so much to live for. All of our babies made it out."
