Leer en espa\u00f1ol<\/a><\/p>\nMaya Garcia, 19, told Local 10 News in an exclusive interview Wednesday that she had no idea she was stepping away from a potentially deadly fire when she went outside to grab her food last week, on Aug. 12.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was terrifying,\u201d Garcia said.<\/p>\n
When she went outside to get the food, Garcia left her Samsung Galaxy A15 phone on her bed.<\/p>\n
About a minute after the food arrived, Garcia and her dad said they heard an explosion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sitting there and I hear an explosion behind me,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cSounded like \u2018boom,\u2019 like glass shattering, \u2018swoosh.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Her room was quickly engulfed in flames.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou couldn\u2019t see inside the house \u2014 flames, smoke,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cI\u2019m panicking, but I\u2019m trying to stay calm.\u201d<\/p>\n
The room was left in ruins, with the phone still visible among the ash. Childhood memories were destroyed.<\/p>\n
The outlet in the room showed no visible signs of an electrical issue.<\/p>\n
Local 10 News reached out to arson investigators, who said their report is not finished yet.<\/p>\n
Garcia and her father said they were told by the arson investigation team that the phone was responsible for the fire.<\/p>\n
Garcia said if the DoorDash delivery had been late, the story might have had a different ending.<\/p>\n
For Garcia, there is one word for how she feels.<\/p>\n
\u201cGrateful,\u201d she said. \u201cI am extremely grateful. What matters is I\u2019m alive here today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Local 10 News reached out to Samsung. The company responded and said they reached out to the family for information.<\/p>\n
\ud83c\udfe0 News From Your Neighborhood<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HIALEAH, Fla. \u2014 A 19-year-old from Hialeah says her Samsung phone recently exploded on her bed and sparked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[225,227,226],"class_list":["post-376555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hialeah","tag-hialeah","tag-hialeah-headlines","tag-hialeah-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}