Dog alerts family their house was on fire

Published: Updated:
Family dog alerts residents to fire. Photo via WINK News.
Family dog alerts residents to fire. Photo via WINK News.

A home in Collier County was destroyed by fire, and now a family is left wondering what comes next.

The fire started at a home off Coconut Circle North near Airport-Pulling Road and Radio Road in East Naples Thursday.

“I opened the door outside and it was full of smoke and the same thing that I smelled in the house,” neighbor Caster Garcia said.

Garcia woke up to the chaotic scene of his neighbor’s home aflame off Coconut Circle N.

Hurricane shutters complicated efforts to put out the fire. Photo via WINK News.
Hurricane shutters complicated efforts to put out the fire. Photo via WINK News.

Greater Naples Fire Rescue crews received the call near 4 a.m. Luckily, no one was hurt but neighbors said it took crews a while to fight the flames because the home still had hurricane shutters up.

“We were trying to remove the wing nuts,” Nolan Sapp said, assistant fire chief for Greater Naples Fire Rescue. “They’d been on there for so long, so we had to cut them to get access to the windows.”

It took crews about 20 minutes to get the fire under control. But Sapp said, if it was not for the family’s dog barking and waking up two women inside, this incident could have ended much worse.

“The dog woke up the granddaughter who then tried to extinguish the fire because she saw it,” Sapp said. “The family pet did wake her up and then she went and got her grandmother and they evacuated the residence.”

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