Firefighters snuff blaze, breathe life back into dog
Copyright 2006 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
By BILL BIRD
Chicago Sun Times (Illinois)
Skylar the goldendoodle couldn’t wait to get her paws on the cold pizza perched atop her owner’s stove.
With her owner gone, the 3-year-old golden retriever/poodle mix from Naperville found a way up near the stove top on March 7, touching off a blaze that almost took her life.
Apparently, Skylar smelled the pizza and tried to get at it sometime after her master, Fred L. Chip Haines IV, left for work that morning. In doing so, the designer pooch probably turned on a burner with a paw.
The burner ignited the cardboard underneath the pizza, producing flames that spread quickly to a nearby, heavy-duty plastic cutting board, and then to the cabinets above the stove, Naperville fire officials said. Haines said the blaze was confined to the kitchen but still did an estimated $50,000 in damage.
A NOSE FOR FOOD
It appears Skylar’s nose for food coupled with her master’s haste in leaving for work triggered the chain of events, Haines said. Naperville fire investigators formally concurred last week, laying the blame for the blaze almost squarely at Skylar’s paws.
The day before the fire, Haines had baked the frozen pizza for dinner. “I left the four center squares still on top of the cardboard [tray] and bridging the front and back burners” of the stove’s right side, he said.
Although Haines, 32, tries to get out the door at 7:30 a.m. sharp to get to his job at a Naperville real estate agency, the fact he was running five minutes late to work the morning of the fire might have set the stage for Skylar’s misadventure. “I didn’t do my typical sweep through the kitchen to make sure [Skylar] couldn’t get at anything,” he said.
Skylar’s pizza pursuit led to a 911 call from a neighbor who smelled smoke. Naperville firefighters and police raced to Haines’ Springbrook Crossings neighborhood.
Firefighters broke down a door after learning Skylar was trapped inside, scooping up the unconscious animal from a front room and rushing her outdoors.
Firefighter-paramedics Jeremiah Adeszko and Jim Harding strapped a mask to Skylar’s snout and used two bottles of oxygen to revive her. For the first 10 minutes or so, there was no change in Skylar’s condition, Adeszko said. But then she lifted her head and started wagging her tail.
“Skylar’s fur is white, but when I saw her that day, she was literally a black dog from the fire’s soot and ash,” Haines said. A bath restored Skylar’s natural looks.
‘HUGE DEBT OF GRATITUDE’
Haines voiced his hope homeowners with pets might benefit from his hard-learned lesson.
He also expressed what he said was a “huge debt of gratitude” to Harding, Adeszko and the contingent of 25 Naperville firefighters who only took four minutes to get to his house.
Skylar and Haines are temporarily living in Carol Stream with Haines’ fiancee, Ginger Whitson. Haines and Whitson, 37, plan to wed in November and, with luck, move into what by then will be Haines’ freshly renovated home.
Haines said Skylar remains a loyal and loving companion, although one might argue she also appears to be a bit of a slow learner. While steering relatively clear of Whitson’s stove so far, Haines admitted Skylar has gotten up on the counter “and gotten treats while we’ve been out.”