ALVA, Fla. – A family woke up early this morning to a fire in their home in Alva. They had only seconds to escape, as it spread to the second floor where their son was sleeping.

Christopher Adkins was sleeping when the fire started near his kids.

“Yeah, we were sleeping right in here. We got a section up here, the 13-year-old Bryce was sleeping up here and the three-year-old was up here in the corner,” described Adkins.

The sound of a fire starting was his alarm this morning.

Adkins described,” I heard banging, it sounded kinda like a gunshot. It woke me up, she woke up shortly after I heard ‘bang, bang,’ and I immediately recognized it as being breaker popping.”

Adkins’ oldest son Bryce was one of the closest ones when the flames ignited. 

“I immediately went upstairs, got Bryce. I literally lifted him up, get him going upstairs and I saw there was smoke coming out of the outlet, so I turned around and pulled the plug thinking maybe it was still just smoking,” said Adkins.

In the main part of the home, the rest of the family woke up to screams. 

“We experienced my son’s girlfriend screaming at 5 in the morning and saying there’s a fire there’s a fire, so we all run out, my son was out, he got the kids out of the house,” recalled Vickers.

Rosella Vickers owns the home and despite it going up in flames, she says relief set in after knowing everyone in her family made it out. 

“My son and his family are fine so that’s all that matters. Material things are replaceable,” Vickers said.

A positive attitude seems to be something this family has plenty of.

Adkins said, “I know we’ll recover. We look at the positive things. There’s gotta be a sign or something.”

We’ve reached out to Fort Myers Fire Shores, to see how and where the fire started, but we haven’t heard back yet.