LAKELAND — Brent Jones and his girlfriend Charity Hartmann were walking into church Aug. 8 at United Methodist Temple here when he said he saw something out of the corner of his eye. It was smoke coming out of a house adjacent to the church, and two people were standing in front of the house, waving their arms.

"I was suspicious, so I walked over to see if I could help," the 17-year-old high school senior said.

The house was on fire, and without thinking, Jones risked his own life to save a 17-year-old girl trapped inside.

Jones said the house was filling up with smoke when he arrived, and that the girl inside had opened the front door, but could not find her key to the door’s security gate. Jones and another man tried pulling the gate open from the outside.

When it wouldn’t open, Jones said he ran around to the garage and tried unsuccessfully to open the three garage doors. He said French doors at the back of the house were also locked.

"I tried to open the French doors, but I couldn’t," he said. "So I put my foot on one door and ripped it open."

Jones said the house was so full of smoke he had to crawl on the floor to get inside. He went to the front door, where he had last seen the girl, but she wasn’t there. By that time, he was having trouble breathing and seeing, so he crawled back out of the house.

"I found a towel on the porch by the pool," he said. "So I dipped it in the pool, folded it up and put it over my face. Then, I crawled back into the house."

Someone outside the house threw a brick through a window, nearly hitting him, Jones said. But the broken window let out some of the smoke, and he was able to see better.

"I saw the girl over to the right; I took her hand and led her out of the house and over to the ambulance," Jones said.

Once back outside, Jones found a garden hose and started spraying water into the house to help put out the fire. "It didn’t do much," he said. "So I went to the ambulance. They did some respiratory tests, said I was okay and that I could leave."

According to reports in the Lakeland "Ledger," the blaze took 30 minutes to control and caused an estimated $100,000 in damage. Investigators suspect the fire started in the home’s electric meter.

Sweaty and smelling like smoke, Jones went with Hartmann to the church’s worship service, which was half over by that time.

Because of his efforts, Jones has received some notoriety in local media. United Methodist Temple youth director Danny Miglia said he is glad to see it. "We get enough bad press about youth," he said. "We need this splashed across the front page."

Miglia also said Jones is very humble about everything that has happened. "He’s real laid-back about it," he said.

Jones said what he did was not a heroic act, and that he didn’t think about what he was doing at the time. "I wouldn’t say I’m a hero," he said. "I hope anyone else in the same situation would do the same thing…that if I was in a house that was on fire, someone would come save me."