NATCHEZ — DeCameron Combs didn’t have to worry about scars or stares this summer.

The Robert Lewis Magnet School eighth-grade student was able to be himself at a Mississippi summer camp for burn survivors.

“It was awesome,” said Combs, who was burned in 2007 at a fire at his grandmother’s apartment. “It was my first real summer camp, so I was excited.”

Combs had such a successful camp experience that at the end of the summer the 13-year-old Natchez native was chosen to attend the International Burn Camp in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the International Association of Fire Fighters.

“I’ve never been before,” Combs said. “I want to see all the monuments.”

Combs first attended the Mississippi Burn Camp Foundation this summer during Memorial Day weekend after camp volunteers contacted Combs’ grandmother, Ladonna Combs-Scott.

She saw the camp as an opportunity for her grandson to meet with other children and teenagers from across the state.

The camp started in 1996 and welcomes burn survivors ages 7 through 15 to Port Gibson each summer for a week of canoeing, swimming, crafts, fishing, horseback riding and a ropes course.

“I knew this would be a great opportunity for him to branch out, show a lot of leadership and meet other kids like him,” Combs-Scott said. “He always wants to be treated like everyone else and nver asks for anything different, but I knew this would be a good experience for him.”

Combs-Scott said she will never forget the day her grandson was burned.

Combs’ mother, Tenika, had dropped her son off so he could spend the night with his grandmother.

Every time Combs would spend the night, he would watch his grandmother wake up, take a match and light a candle on a table in their living room.

Combs-Scott went to bed March 24, 2007, after putting her grandson to sleep and taking some medications for epileptic seizures. The medication made her fall into a deeper sleep than normal, but Combs-Scott knew her grandson would wake her up to watch cartoons that next morning.

She awoke to her grandson standing in front of her on fire calling for help.

“I jumped up and grabbed him to take him in the bathroom to put some water on him, but the water wouldn’t cut on,” Combs-Scott said. “I grabbed a blanket, covered him with it and put out the flames.”

In minutes Combs-Scott was at Natchez Regional Medical Center begging doctors to help her grandson.

Combs eventually was transported to a burn center in Baton Rouge before being sent to a different facility in Galveston, Texas.

All Combs-Scott knows from that day is that her grandson tried to light the candle as he had seen her do through the years. Somehow, the entire box of matches caught on fire and spread to his body.

“If I hadn’t put those matches next to the candle, he would have never been able to light it,” Combs-Scott said. “I have to live with that every day for the rest of my life.”

Seven years and 28 surgeries later, Combs said he still can’t remember much from that day and doesn’t want to — the middle-school student is too busy being a normal teenager.

“I made a lot of friends at the camp,” Combs said. “I like to socialize.”

That word isn’t exactly what Combs’ camp counselor used.

“Cutting up is more like it,” said Jason Watkins, a member of the Reservoir Fire Department and volunteer camp counselor. “You were always up to something.”

Joking aside, Watkins said he was impressed with the level of leadership Combs showed during the trip.

“Cameron has the type of personality that just jumps out at you, and he’s not a stranger to anybody,” Watkins said. “Some of the younger kids really took to him, and he helped them a lot.”

Watkins will join Combs when they travel to the nation’s Capitol next month to meet up with nearly 60 campers and counselors from across America and Canada.

Mississippi Burn Camp Director Tammy Moore said both camps are a great opportunity for young burn victims to talk to others who have gone through similar situations.

“It’s a total break away from the world they know, and they can just be themselves,” Moore said. “Then we pick one camper who we think would get the most out of the experience to travel to D.C., and who we think would be a great representative for the State of Mississippi.

“That was absolutely DeCameron this year.”

The trip will involve tours of several landmarks and monuments and even the possibility of meeting the President of the United States.

“That would be cool,” Combs said. “I want to ask him what it’s like to be president.”