North Lauderdale home destroyed in predawn fire; family’s beloved dog dies
NORTH LAUDERDALE — A fierce blaze destroyed a mobile home in North Lauderdale around 4 a.m. Sunday, leaving a family of six homeless and one of their dogs dead, Fire Chief Rodney Turpel said.
The family, with kids as young as 10 and 11, all escaped unhurt.
Firefighters braved the flames to rescue all three of the family dogs.
“They pulled all three dogs out,” the chief said. “One didn’t make it.”
More than 20 firefighters from North Lauderdale and Tamarac worked together to extinguish the fire at 5253 NW 36 Way in the Villages Mobile Home Park.
Anthony Ortega, 17, was awake and on his phone when he noticed smoke around 3:50 a.m.
“I thought it was candles. I thought it was my mom’s candles,” he told a Sun Sentinel photographer. “I thought nothing of it.”
But the smoke intensified.
“As I looked up, I saw a lot of smoke,” said Ortega, a junior at Boyd Anderson High in Lauderdale Lakes. “I got up, jumped up.”
Soon his sister, 21-yearold Suzana Ortega, was at the door.
She led him and their younger sister to safety.
She was in the kitchen on her computer when the fire broke out, she said. Her father was already outside,
getting ready for work and putting equipment in his truck.
The rest of the family was also able to make it out safely. But once they got outside, they realized the dogs were still inside the home.
“We heard the dogs yelping,” Anthony Ortega said. “Flames were shooting out windows. I went in twice.”
He couldn’t find the dogs so he tried to go in a third time, but his father held him back, he said.
“We don’t know what we’re gonna do,” Suzana Ortega said just a few hours after the fire was out.
Her younger siblings are distraught about losing their home and their dog, she said.
“We’ve had [the dog] for four or five years,” she said.
The fire was brutal, reducing the home to nothing but charred remains.
It was a total loss, according to the fire chief, who said no other homes were damaged.
The family is getting assistance in finding temporary housing from the Red Cross, Turpel said.
The state Fire Marshal is working on determining the cause of the fire.
“We don’t know what caused it yet,” Turpel said. “We don’t know if this is accidental or electrical. We are not suspecting arson.”