Firefighters save dog who started blaze
A puppy had to be given lifesaving treatment by firefighters after it started a fire in its owners’ kitchen while they were out playing badminton.
Six-month-old black Labrador Harris managed to turn on the electric cooker then knock a wicker fruit basket on to the hob. Owner Fiona Milne and Calum Campbell, returned to find their pet unconscious in the smoke filled room.
A puppy had to be given lifesaving treatment by firefighters after it started a fire in its owners’ kitchen while they were out playing badminton.
Six-month old black Labrador Harris managed to turn on the electric cooker then knock a wicker fruit and vegetable basket on to the hob.
Owner Fiona Milne and her fiancé Calum Campbell, who had left the puppy alone in the house in Liberton, Edinburgh, returned to find their pet unconscious in the smoke filled room.
Firefighters were able to put out the blaze before it took hold in the rest of the kitchen, and saved Harris’ life by administering oxygen via a mask on the front lawn.
Ms Milne, 25, said: “We went out for an hour to play badminton. When we came home we heard the alarm, opened the door and the house was full of smoke. We ran in to the house but you couldn’t see anything at all in the kitchen because the smoke was so thick.
“We were feeling around for Harris, then Calum found him at the back door. He had his head in his water bowl and he was unconscious.
“We just grabbed Harris and ran outside to call the fire brigade.”
The fire caused more than £1,000 worth of damage. The cooker was beyond repair, as were some cupboards, blackened wall tiles and the kitchen curtains.
The vegetable basket and a boxed picture frame that was on the work surface were destroyed by the fire. The rest of the house was left uninhabitable because of the smell of smoke that permeated every corner of the property.
Harris came around thanks to the oxygen and was then rushed to a vet for “intensive care”.
The pet was kept overnight in an “oxygen kennel” with medication administered through a cannula in his leg.
Ms Milne, a trainee paralegal with an Edinburgh law firm, said Harris was tired out from a long walk before the couple left the house.
They also “dog-proofed” the property by clearing away anything their puppy could chew.
The cooker was switched off, but Harris somehow turned the dial and manoeuvred the basket on to the hob.
Mr Campbell, 25, who works as an emergency call handler for Police Scotland, said: “When I went in the kitchen, I couldn’t see anything for smoke. I found Harris with his head in the water bowl. His body was completely limp.
“The firefighters couldn’t say how long Harris had been unconscious, but they said if we had been any later we would not have been so lucky.”