Firefighters revive dog after house fire

A Yuma man lost his home and all of his possessions when his trailer was destroyed in a fire Monday, but thanks to the efforts of firefighters, he still has his beloved pet, a German shepherd named Booger.

The fire happened Monday afternoon in the 900 block of Bell Street.

After pulling the dog from the charred trailer, firefighters from Rural/Metro were able to revive the animal. Firefighters spent several minutes trying to revive the dog, administering breathing treatments and giving it bottles of oxygen.

“The dog was found in the back bathroom. The room itself was full of smoke, but was not on fire,” said Charly McMurdie, a spokesperson for Rural/Metro. “The dog is alive and currently on its way to the vet.”

McMurdie said firefighters were dispatched to the scene sometime around 11:30 a.m. after receiving a 911 call reporting a shed on fire. When firefighters arrived on scene the blaze had spread to the nearby trailer.

“When we got on scene we found a fully-involved shed and trailer on fire, with all the occupants out at that time, except for one animal,” McMurdie said.

Firefighters had the fire out within minutes of their arrival. The trailer, however, was a total loss.

James Kookookthe, who was visiting his cousin at a nearby home, said he was watching television when he suddenly heard what he described as a loud “pop.”

“When I opened up the door I saw flames licking up the side of his friend's trailer,” Kookookthe said. “It scared me when I saw the flames and thought he still might be inside, so I ran out to make sure he was out of his trailer.”

Once outside, Kookookthe said he heard the man's voice yelling at him that he had made it out safely and was OK.

“It was a relief off my shoulders,” Kookookthe said.

After that, Kookookthe said he ran back inside his trailer, grabbed a fire extinguisher and tried to douse the flames with it.

“Being that it was such a small extinguisher, it ran out too fast and only stifled the fire for a couple of seconds,” Kookookthe said. “It immediately rose up again and engulfed the front end of his trailer, and there was nothing else we could do.”

Kookookthe said that is about the time fire trucks began arriving, with firefighters working quickly to extinguish the blaze.

“I ran around the side trying to call his dog, but his dog wouldn't come out,” Kookookthe said. “The heat was too intense for me to even get near it. That's when the firefighters told us to stay away, so we did.”

McMurdie said the cause of the fire is still under investigation and they won't know more about how it started until the investigation has been completed.

James Gilbert can be reached at jgilbert@yumasun.com or 539-6854. Find him on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/YSJamesGilbert or on Twitter at @YSJamesGilbert.