A dog saved the homeowners by alerting them of a residential house fire in Cape Girardeau

CAPE GIRARDEAU Mo. (KBSI) – A sad morning for the two former residents of 144 Camellia Drive in Cape Girardeau as smoke ignited a fire that spread throughout their residence. 

This fire has resulted in their home being a total loss. An estimate of about 75 thousand dollars was lost due to this fire. 

Brad Dillow is the Battalion Chief for the Cape Girardeau Fire Department he says the fire initiated in the garage area but is still uncertain of what caused such destruction. 

“A residential fire was reported around just prior to 1:00 this morning. We believe the fire started in and around the garage carport area. The homeowners were there at the time of the incident, and they were alerted to the incident by their family dog.”

Not all humans are heroes as this one family dog woke up the homeowners and they evacuated safely the dog however was left in the home. 

“As they were, all getting out of the house, the dog ran back into the house. which later firefighters were able to locate the dog under a bed and bring it out and resuscitate the dog and the dog is doing well, to my understanding.”

Fire personnel showed up quickly enough to rescue the family dog from underneath the bed. As for the home, it was a one-story structure with a basement. The fire mainly came through the carport and attic area which was easy to spread throughout the rest of the home quickly. 

“To the amount of water that we had to apply to extinguish the fire. There’s heavy water damage throughout the entire structure. We did have to go back today for several hot spots that had flooded back up due to the blown in insulation in the attic area.”

With the amount of fire damage and water added to extinguish the destruction it does not seem possible. For the family we were told by the Fire Department that they were staying with family members close by. 

“While we were over there earlier today, extinguishing those hot spots, I was told by a neighbor that they were on their way over. however, they never showed up while we were there.”

The fire was brought down by Cape Girardeau Fire Department within 25 minutes. They continued to extinguish hot spots throughout the day but no other homes nearby were affected. 

Luckily, no people or pets were injured or hurt during this scene.