HENRICO COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) - A couple in Henrico County is searching for the mystery woman who they said saved their Christmas by alerting them to a fire at their home. “She came up on the porch with flames," said homeowners Sherri and Jerry Howard. "They were all around her when she came up, banged on the door and rang the doorbell.” The Howards were preparing for their Christmas dinner on the evening of Dec. 24 when disaster nearly struck around 5:30 p.m. Had she not knocked on their door in time, they believe it would have been too late to save their house. "I'm sitting here and I know they're cooking stuff. And I said, 'What are you burning in there? Something smells,'" Jerry Howard said. "She told me what they were cooking and it's not burning. And so I said, 'Okay' [and] I went on back to my game." A few minutes later, Jerry said he heard loud banging at their front door -- it was the woman notifying them about the fire. The couple said if the fire had gone unnoticed for just a couple more minutes, it would have spread to the attic, potentially destroying their entire home. "It was really close to being really bad," said Jerry Howard. The mystery woman had left her car in the middle of the street with all the doors open to make sure the Howards knew about the fire. “I didn’t even think to ask her name, other than to give her a hug and say, ‘Thank you so much. Go on, get to where you need to be,’” Jerry said. “She was an angel to us." Thanks to the woman’s quick actions, no fire alarms went off inside the house. Jerry was able to grab a fire extinguisher and extinguish the flames while his wife called Henrico’s fire department. “As I went out the door, I’ve got fire coming down over my head, over the doorway. So I’m hitting it with the extinguisher as I go out the door,” he recalled. Firefighters determined that the fire started from the porch lights due to an electrical issue. Despite the scare, the Howards were able to clean up and celebrate Christmas, thankful for the stranger who helped save their home. “We’re strong believers in Jesus Christ, and... I believe He worked through her that day to help us,” Jerry and Sherri said. Since the fire, the Howards have been driving around their neighborhood, hoping to spot the woman who saved them. They are eager to thank her in person for her selfless actions. "I know she [Sherri] would like to thank her, I'd like to thank her, you know, she was an angel to us,” Jerry said. As they prepare to repair the minimal interior damage next week, the couple hopes others will take away an important lesson -- always have a fire extinguisher on hand. “If you don’t have a fire extinguisher in your house, please, please go and get a couple,” Jerry said.