4-year-old helps her family escape from a fire in southwest Columbia

A 4-year-old is being called a hero after she was the first one to see the flames, that destroyed an apartment complex Saturday night, from outside of her window.

Authorities were at the 4300 block of Mesa Drive in Columbia Saturday night in response to a structure fire.

Fire officials say the fire started in one of the ground floor apartments of the quadplex around 9:40 p.m. Saturday.

ABC 17 News spoke with the Osterholt family who lives on the ground floor across from where the apartment fire started.

Timothy Osterholt, resident of the apartment building, told ABC 17 News he was happy that he and his family are safe and alive, all thanks to his daughter.

Ashlyn Osterholt, 4-years-old, told ABC 17 News, “I look out at the window and then I saw fire,” she said, ” I told my mommy and daddy.”

Osterholt said after he verified that flames were outside their window, he immediately grabbed the family and brought them outside.

“We got all of them out and I ran up the stairs and screamed, ‘fire,’ so people knew there was a fire going on.

Authorities say the Osterholt family and one other resident were the only ones in the building at the time, luckily no one was hurt.

Fire officials told Osterholt that because his door was closed the flames weren’t able to get inside his home.

“We only have a little bit of damage, but because of the smoke we can’t live there, so we are going to live at our in-laws.”

ABC 17 News was on scene Sunday afternoon as the Boone County Sheriff’s Department’s Crime Scene Investigation unit was on scene taking pictures and going through the aftermath.

Investigators still have not determined the cause of the fire, but are investigating it as suspicious.