Dog saved from burning house

Friends returning from buying lunch saved their neighbour’s dog from its burning home today.

While walking down the drive to a rear section in Harrier Street, they saw the neighbour’s house was on fire.

Angel with her rescuers, from left Ethan, Katene Conner, Huk Stock and Cameron Wilson.

“We just saw heaps of smoke coming out that window,” says Ethan Russell. “We jumped the fence. We had to kick the door down. We went through the house and saw the dog standing in the smoke.”

Angel the bulldog is the owner’s watch dog. The occupants were out when the fire broke out, and returned home to find it in ruins. They didn’t want to talk to SunLive.

Fire fighters from Tauranga and Greerton attended.

“It was a bedroom fire,” says Greerton station officer Nigel Liddicoat. “The young people from next door heard the smoke alarm and saw the smoke coming out the windows. They broke down the door to rescue the dog in the house, and rang the fire service.

The rear unit of the two unit house house was full of smoke with flames just starting to come out the window when the Greerton brigade arrived about 11.40am. The window broke as the brigade arrived and the fire flared up with the fresh air.

The fire damage was kept to the bedroom where it started, but there was reasonably extensive smoke damage to the rest of the house.

“It hadn’t got up into the roof,” says Nigel. “Fortunately there was two layers in the ceiling. It had been an old Pinex ceiling that they had gibbed over, and it hadn’t actually gotten through that. There was no real damage at all up in the roof.

“My boys worked extremely well in pushing the fire back out through the burnt area, minimising any further loss.”

An electrical fault is believed to be the cause.

The fire was contained in the bedroom

Fire trucks from Greerton and Tauranga in Harrier Street