Stacksteads home-alone dog ‘may have started blaze’ (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Stacksteads home-alone dog ‘may have started blaze’

8:00pm Friday 27th January 2012 in News

A DOG could have started a house fire after being left home alone by its owners.

But the ‘distressed’ Staffordshire bull terrier alerted neighbours to the blaze by jumping up at the living room window.

Fire crews from Bacup and Rawtenstall were called to a house fire in Church Street, Stacksteads, at 1.40pm on Wednesday, when neighbours spotted the dog at the window.

When firefighters arrived they couldn’t see into the property.

The curtains were shut and nobody was in.

But they saw smoke coming from a vent and used a door ram to gain entry to the terraced property.

With smoke filling the downstairs rooms, teams used a thermal imaging camera to locate the dog.

A spokesman for the fire service said: “The fire was started by an electrical heater in the living room. The two possibilities are that the dog knocked it over, or it developed a fault and ignited.

“The occupiers, a Latvian woman and her partner, must have just popped out because the heater, the fire and the television were all left switched on.

“When we got in, the heater was totally destroyed. They were very fortunate there was not more damage.”

The dog was unhurt.