Courageous actions saved family from fire; 24-year-old thankful for outcome

Nearly two years after a fire destroyed his family’s home on Griffith Drive in Orangeburg, 24-year-old Marquis Kirkland is thankful.

He’s thankful his family made it out and that they were able to rebuild.

And he’s thankful for the lessons he’s learned since the fire happened.

The Orangeburg County Community of Character organization named Kirkland as its November character honoree for showing courage.

Kirkland recounted the early morning fire of Jan. 20, 2021 last week as though it happened yesterday.

Kirkland, then 22, said he was in bed at 3 a.m. and talking to a loved one on the phone when he started to smell smoke.

“It’s a fire! It’s a fire!” Kirkland shouted.

The person on the phone called 911, sending firetrucks to the burning home.

Kirkland formed his right hand into a fist and punched through his bedroom window. He still has a few small scars on his wrist from where the glass cut him.

“My first instinct was, ‘I’ve got to get out of this house!’” he said.

He jumped from the second story and knew he had to make sure everyone else was out of the home.

He reentered the burning home and “I was yelling at the top of my lungs.”

As the house filled with smoke, “instinct really took over, and I remember being in ‘panic mode.’”

“And I kind of blacked out about that time because of the smoke,” he said.

He first stopped by the bedroom where his nieces and nephews slept.

No one was in the room when he went in it. He realized they already ran to safety.

He next went to his brother’s room and couldn’t find him there, so he went to his sister’s room.

He managed to get her to the window so she could jump to safety from the second story.

“Where’s my brother? Where’s my brother?” Kirkland asked. He realized his brother was still inside.

Kirkland remembered the warning given by firefighters to never reenter a burning building, but he returned anyway.

“I went back into the house and he was in there coughing,” Kirkland said.

“I can’t see. I can’t breathe,” Kirkland remembers his brother saying to him.

He got his brother to the window just as he did their sister.

Kirkland said his brother didn’t want to jump.

“I can’t do it,” he recalls his brother saying.

“You’re either doing it or I’m going to push you out,” Kirkland said to him.

His brother took Kirkland’s advice and jumped.

Kirkland said all he had was the pajama pants he was wearing and Jesus.

As he stood outside with his family, a neighbor brought him a sweater and a pair of Crocs.

While Kirkland and his family were able to make it out of their house safely, their dog didn’t.

Kirkland said he doesn’t consider himself a hero for his actions.

“I don’t believe in being a hero, so to speak. I believe that anybody in my position would’ve done the same thing,” he said.

“I believe if you have love for your family that you would do anything to make sure they’re OK,” he said.

“And they would’ve done the same for me,” he added.

The Orangeburg Department of Public Safety put the fire out at the home.

It was a complete loss.

Kirkland said that while he lost material possessions, he gained more than he could’ve imagined – and it wasn’t necessarily what money could replace or buy.

As a result of the fire, he’s matured. He’s able to extend empathy to others who find themselves in predicaments where they, too, have lost everything.

“The greatest gift that you have is the gift of empathy,” he said.

“It forced me to look at life differently,” Kirkland said of the fire.

He’s proud to be from Orangeburg and the community’s support for his family made him even prouder, he said.

“The community really helped a lot,” he said. Kirkland noted, “My employer at the time, Zeus, was tremendous in helping.”

His Christian faith deepened too.

“I’m thankful it happened the way that it did, that we were safe and able to learn from it,” he said.

Kirkland’s family has since rebuilt their home on the same place where the previous home burned.

“The Lord takes and the Lord gives,” he said.