Family of 6 Loses Everything After Fire Breaks Out Inside Garage, but Dad Credits ‘Miracle’ with Saving Their Lives

A Florida family is focusing on gratitude after a fire tore through their home while they slept — and they say a series of small decisions helped save their lives.

Mina Raky, a married schoolteacher and father of four, says he stayed up late finishing the final paper for his Ph.D. on Tuesday, Dec. 2. Because of that, he slept in the next morning.

He usually wears noise-canceling headphones when he sleeps, but skipped them that day. Around 5 a.m. at his two-story home in Sanford, he woke up to strange popping sounds outside.

“That was the first miracle,” he says.

At first, Raky thought someone might be trying to break in. He headed toward the garage to grab his firearm — and instead found his Tesla, which had been charging, surrounded by smoke.

His instinct was to move the car out of the house, but his wife’s vehicle was parked right behind it in the driveway, blocking any escape route. Realizing there was no way to get the Tesla out in time, he started shouting to wake his wife and their four children: Lily, 18, Emmanuel, 12, Liana, 11, and Miarose, 8.

His wife and the three younger children made it out quickly. Lily, who was upstairs, heard the smoke alarms and began searching for Emmanuel in the adjacent bedroom, not realizing he had already escaped.

“I tried to find any way to get inside the house to go to the second story. But I couldn’t — the fire was eating the stairs,” Raky recalls.

Knowing his daughter wouldn’t be able to use the staircase either, he ran to the backyard and called her name from beneath her window. Lily was able to reach the window, open it and jump to safety.

After landing, she received oxygen from first responders and was taken to the hospital by ambulance. She was discharged later the same day. The family dog also needed some treatment but has since recovered.

According to the Sanford Fire Department’s report, which Raky and local police shared, “the origin of the fire was found to be at or around the Tesla charging station in the garage.” The report also notes that the blaze — still under investigation — “did not appear to be intentional or suspicious in nature.”

Raky says he had owned the Tesla, now heavily damaged, for more than a year and had never had problems with the charger before.

“Tesla is a good car,” he says, but adds a warning for other owners: “Build a charging station outside your home. Do not charge in your garage.”

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Although the family home was destroyed and they are currently staying in an Airbnb, Raky says the support they’ve received has been overwhelming.

“We’re living the love of the community, the love of our church family,” he says. “We’re getting help from the county, getting help from the school system… I’m being surrounded with love and care.”

Raky’s daughter Lily has created a GoFundMe campaign to help the family rebuild after losing nearly everything.

“In just minutes, they lost everything—clothes, furniture, family memories, and the sense of safety that a home provides,” she wrote in the fundraiser description. “Thankfully, everyone made it out safely, but rebuilding a home and gathering essentials is going to be difficult.”

For now, the family is focused on restoring some sense of normalcy, especially for the children.

“We’re buying clothes, trying to have something under that Christmas tree for the kids,” Raky says. “You want to feel normal. So we’re trying to distract them with new shoes, new clothes, new backpacks. We lost everything. It’s a big trauma.”

Still, he believes their survival was no accident.

“I’m a Christian,” Raky says. “I’m a believer. So when you look at the whole scenario, you see that God’s hand surrounded us. He woke me up on time.”