Dog rescued in house fire on North Ridge Drive

A home at 917 North Ridge Drive was destroyed by fire early Thursday morning but Columbus Fire & EMS officials were able to rescue the pet trapped inside.

Firefighters were called to the scene at the Kirkwood subdivision around 7 a.m., after the blaze started with a mother and her two children inside. By the time officials arrived, the family had escaped without injury, but their 6-year-old dog named Cleo was still trapped inside the house under a piece of fallen sheet rock.

Battalion Chief Terry Herring said he’s proud of his crew’s efforts to battle the fire and rescue the Shih Tzu-dachshund mix after doing primary and secondary searches of the tri-level home. The blaze had “started in the lower level and burned its way up,” he added.

“When they say, ‘My dog’s inside,’ we’re looking for a family member,” Herring said. “To go for about 45 minutes and we can’t find this pet and we know how bad the atmosphere is with smoke, the outcome is not going to be very good. We know that but we were still looking.”

Susan Krysak, who lives in the Kirkwood subdivision, said she prayed as the children cried in fear of their dog’s safety. She said it was Herring’s calm and collected demeanor that brought comfort to the situation.

“I was worried for Cleo because she looks like my little dog, and I can imagine how afraid she was,” she said. “She thought that by hiding she was protecting himself. She didn’t know what to do and how to react to all of that smoke.

Herring said officials initially thought the dog may have escaped when the family did but found the pet inside after a 45-minute search.

“..To find the pet and he’s still alive and we got oxygen on him and got him back home really good and everything is just a great feeling for everybody on scene, very satisfying,” he said.

Herring said his crew took their usual approach to battle the blaze, but the home valued at more than $200,000 was still a total loss.

“Every home that we go to, we do an interior attack,” Herring said. “If you can’t get to the seed of the fire and physically see the flame, then you can’t put water on it.”

He said it took two different crews coming from different entrances with different handlines to find the seed of the fire.

“They tear walls and gut walls out so they can get the water where it needs to go as they’re working,” Herring said. “They had a lot of hidden spaces, so the firemen worked very hard. I’m very proud of all of them.”

This story was originally published April 28, 2016 at 9:47 AM with the headline "Dog rescued in house fire on North Ridge Drive."