A young woman who saved a baby from a burning house in Hay River, N.W.T., last week says she just did what she had to.

When Brette Jameson, 19, went to visit her friend Taylor Pope and Pope's infant daughter, Neveah, she smelled smoke.

Jameson says when she walked into the bedroom, the walls were on fire and the baby was lying on a bed surrounded by flames.

"I shoved Neveah's head into my shoulder, so she wouldn't inhale any smoke and kind of suffocated the smoke and fire with my arms," Jameson says.

Neveah's hair was on fire and her skin was hot. Jameson and the baby's mother, Taylor, got out of the house as fast as they could.

"I was booking it, grabbing snow from that pile," Jameson said, " … melting it in my hands and then trying to put it on Neveah's burns on her head where her hair was on fire, and rubbing it on her body."

Jameson drove Pope and her baby to the hospital.

Pope's grandmother, Liz Pope, says she's thankful Jameson was there.

"She's my hero," she said. "Brette Jameson will forever be my hero. She helped take my two greatest gems out of that burning house. Everything else, replaceable. Taylor and Neveah, not replaceable, and Brette Jameson saved them."

Jameson says she was just doing what she had to do.

"I'm happy we get to spend another day with [Taylor and Neveah]," she said.

Neveah is recovering from surgery in Edmonton. Her grandmother says she's doing well.