MILTON - An elderly woman is safe after firefighters found her kitchen filled with smoke.

Rescuers say it was an electrical fire that could have been worse without the help of a 12-year-old hero.

Channel Three's Liz Nagy is here now with more.

Firefighters say the smoke started in the fan above the stove.

The elderly woman's daughter started pre-heating the oven, it sparked, and started smoking.

That's when her granddaughter thought fast and saved the family.

Wendy Ortiz: "I called my mom and was like, 'Mom, the kitchen is on fire!'"

Ortiz says she was doing her homework Wednesday afternoon when she looked up and smoke was pouring from this stove.

Ortiz: "I thought 'oh my gosh, I have to do something!'"

Immediately, she called 911 and went to grab her grandmother at the same time.

Ortiz: "She was asking, 'what's going on, is something burning?', and I was like, 'yes, something's burning, you have to get out of the house!'"

Firefighters say the three women at home must have gotten out through this door, and it was the youngest girl who pulled them all to safety.

Ortiz says her mother wouldn't leave the house.

She was trying to put out the fire on her own.

Petrified that something would happen to her mother, she went back in against the orders of the 911 dispatcher.

Mark Lewis: "There's not many people that would run back into a burning building, and she did. I would call that a hero."

Firefighter Mark Lewis admits Ortiz's rescue mission could have ended differently.

Lewis: "Instead of looking for one person, we could have been looking for three."

The fire put itself out within about 10 minutes.

Because it was an electrical fire, firefighters say the breaker tripped on its own and stopped electricity, which helped put out the fire.Twelve-Year-Old Saves Family From House Fire