An Alabama driver’s unintended, GPS-directed detour in Georgia positioned him to help save a couple and a dozen children in their care from a fire that enveloped their home while they slept recently, according to the family and their rescuer.

As he recounted in an interview with television station WRCB that quickly went viral among internet circles dedicated to uplifting news stories, James Burke had fallen asleep in his recliner while his wife, 12 adopted children and one grandchild slept in their beds on the night of 17 October in the community of Lyerly, Georgia.

Burke said he only woke up because he felt the presence of a man whom he did not know in his living room telling him: “Hey, you’ve got to get out of here. Your house is on fire.”

That man – Casey Sparks, 37, of Concorde, Alabama – then worked with Burke to get his wife, Larita, and all 12 children out of the burning home. Sparks also helped firefighters get to the scene, as Burke put it to WRCB.

Sparks on Monday told the Guardian that he and his 13-year-old son were driving back home from a softball tournament in Dalton, Georgia – about 40 miles north-east of Lyerly – when his GPS kept sending him to Burke’s community even though they had gone through nearby Chattanooga, Tennessee, on the way to the competition.

“It kept pointing me in that direction,” said Sparks, whose perspective was first reported by independent good news journalist Rick Karle. “We ended up going like it wanted us to, and I’m so thankful.”

Sparks eventually saw the Burkes’ roof ablaze, with the flames spreading to the rest of the house. He pulled over outside the home; instructed his son, Cason, to stay in their truck and call for emergency help; and ran up to a side door alongside another passerby who had stopped upon seeing the flames.

That door, Sparks later learned, had a lock which had previously been broken and was left unrepaired. Sparks went through that door after he encountered a teen who, in an evident panic, had grabbed a hose pot to try to put the fire out.

That teen said other people were in the home, prompting Sparks to go in while the other passerby stayed with Cason.

Sparks then found Burke and woke him up. He soon carried out the Burkes’ granddaughter, whom Karle described as blind and age 10.

Then, instead of waiting for first responders, Sparks ran back inside, escorted Larita Burke to safety, and did the same “with many more children” – including some who had disabilities or special needs, as Karle reported.

The blaze ultimately caused the Burkes’ house to collapse, and it consumed their three vehicles, Karle wrote. Nonetheless, no one was physically hurt.

“If it had been another five minutes, it would’ve been a different situation,” Larita Burke subsequently told WRCB. “We wouldn’t have made it.”

Sparks, for his part, said he and Cason finished driving back home to Alabama in mostly silence after firefighters brought the blaze under control.

“Daddy, I wasn’t ready for that” may have been the only thing Cason said during the rest of the trip, Sparks recalled. Sparks said his only comment in reply was: “Me neither.”

Sparks on Monday said he firmly believed divine intervention placed him where he needed to be on the night of the fire at the Burkes’ home.

“Everything that lined up for me to be there when I was – how I was – there’s no other explanation,” Sparks remarked.

“It was God. That’s it.”

The Burkes told WRCB it was difficult to grasp how they had lost their belongings in a fire, whose cause had not been immediately determined. Yet the couple – who said they had fostered more than 500 children at their home during the 15 years preceding the fire – said their spirits were boosted by community members who rallied around them in the aftermath of the disaster.

Notably, as of Monday morning, an online fundraiser organized by James Burke’s sister, Renia Evans, had generated more than $11,000 in donations for him, Larita and their children as they sought a rental house big enough for all 14 of them to live in as their home is replaced or rebuilt.

Sparks on Monday said he had communicated with the Burkes’ since the fire and was relieved to see the public supporting them.

“That family is amazing,” he said.

A statement attributed to Evans read: “We will forever be grateful for Casey. … His courage and selflessness will never be forgotten.”

Meanwhile, James Burke told WRCB: “We are traumatized, of course, but you know what? We’re gonna turn this page, and we’re gonna get on with our lives because we have so much to live for.

“All of our babies made it out.”