HOUSTON -- A fire ripped through a Houston family's home early Thursday morning, but family members all managed to escape unharmed thanks to their autistic teenager.

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Father Describes What Happened During Fire

The fire broke out shortly after 3 a.m. at the family's duplex, located near the intersection of Genesee and Welch near downtown.

Pat Whitley told News2Houston that the fire broke out in his daughter's bedroom.

"She could have caught on fire because she was sleeping right on the bed," Whitley said. "She could have been burned up."

Whitley said that his 17-year-old daughter, Sandy, who is autistic, mentally disabled and can't speak, saved him and the rest of his family by waking them all up.

"I wanted to go back to sleep, and then she kept on wanting me to get up," Whitley said.

He said that after he got up, he smelled smoke and raced to his daughter's half of the duplex, which is next door to his, and saw the flames quickly spread through her bedroom.

"My first thought was to put it out, but it went up so fast," Whitley said. "It was too much smoke. I started choking, so I just got my daughter and we got out."

Firefighters managed to prevent the blaze from spreading to the other half of the duplex, where Whitley's mother and two other children were sleeping.

"We saw a huge fire of 6 feet -- higher than the house and we woke up and it's 3 o'clock in the morning and we were all asleep," neighbor Carolyn Nelson said. "It was very scary -- very hot."

No injuries were reported.

Sandy's part of the duplex suffered heavy fire and smoke damage, authorities said.

Fire investigators said that a window air-conditioning unit in Sandy's bedroom may have sparked the blaze.

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