Kitchen fire starts after dog switches on cooker hob
AGRANDMOTHER who had a lucky escape from a house fire that her dog started when he turned on the cooker has spoken of her dramatic New Year’s Eve.
Lindsey Thomas, 49, was awoken by her dog, Hugo, barking and the fire alarm going off.
Dalmatian/collie-cross Hugo managed to switch on one of the cooker’s electric plates while trying to reach some cake, his owner said, with a plastic plate being set alight.
Grandmother of five Lindsey was at home in Trecynon, Aberdare, and had decided to have an early night shortly after 11pm. “I wasn’t feeling 100%” she said. “But I had literally gone to bed for 10 minutes when I heard the dog barking and then he was running around the house. That’s when I heard the fire alarm.”
Lindsey got up and found the hallway “full of smoke”, before finding a plate on fire in the kitchen.
She said she managed to get back upstairs to call the emergency services before escaping unharmed with Hugo and her other dog, Iolo.
Neighbour Nathan Wise then went back into the house with a large, damp bath towel in a bid to extinguish the fire before emergency services arrived.
South Wales Fire and Rescue Service was called to the blaze in Rhondda Cynon Taf at 11.40pm on Sunday, where firefighters wearing breathing apparatus used a hose reel, and equipment to ventilate the property.
A spokeswoman said the fire started after a pet dog “accidentally turned a cooker on”.
Nobody was injured during the fire – but Hugo has come away from it with a burnt nose.
“He’s got a bit of a burn mark on his noise,” Lindsey said. “He probably didn’t realise what a fire was because he had never seen one before.”
Hugo’s owner said he is “forever looking for food” and can often be found jumping up at the counter in the kitchen.
“I had left some food on top of the cooker and he must have been trying to get to the food and in doing that he knocked the cooker on,” she said.
“He’s a beautiful dog. Beautiful personality – but he is our problem child.”
Lindsey said most of the smoke damage was contained in the kitchen, but added that Hugo doesn’t seem to have learned his lesson.
“When I got up (on Tuesday morning) the kettle was warm. He must have switched it on before I came down!”