Agitated dogs help alert family to spreading fire

A WAIKANAE family’s two dogs helped save their lives by alerting them to a fire spreading through their home.

Jermaine Papara said he and his wife were in the living room of their Matai St home about 11pm on Sunday, with their three children asleep in their bedrooms, when they heard a commotion in the adjoining garage where the dogs slept.

‘‘There was lots of banging.’’ He went to the garage and saw a small fire in the dogs’ bed area and yelled out to his wife.

‘‘By the time my wife ran to the bedrooms, it was smoked out – within 20 seconds. We ran the kids out and it just went straight up.’’

Papara grabbed an outside hose but it was not long enough so he ran around the back to get a bigger one, with the smoke so dense he could barely see. He then ran to a neighbouring unit in front of their home and rescued a couple with a disabled son. ‘‘She [the wife] was freaking out,’’ he said.

By the time firefighters arrived soon afterwards the house was burning fiercely.

Visiting the charred remains of their home yesterday, Papara said their chickens out the back had perished but their American bulldog and black labrador were un-

‘By the time my wife ran to the bedrooms, it was smoked out. We ran the kids out and [the house] just went straight up.’

Jermaine Papara of the fire that consumed his family’s home hurt. ‘‘The chickens were burnt. I did not get to them in time.’’

He regretted keeping highly flammable items – gas barbecue bottles and containers of petrol – in the garage and in future would store them in a shed.

Papara’s sister-in-law Amanda Houia-Ashwell said donations were already pouring in for the family from the community and their church. There had been offers of places to stay, clothing and money.

‘‘At the end of the day it was material things that were lost that can be replaced – not lives,’’ she said. ‘‘They are a really caring family who have been there for everyone who needed help. It is just so sad when you have lost everything but there is nothing more important than life.’’

The fire was not believed to be suspicious.