Johnny Romero was driving when he saw a ball of smoke shoot up into the sky early Tuesday afternoon.
Curious about the cause of the smoke, he drove to the source: a home on the 16000 block of Lomand Circle in Brighton. There, Romero, 34, of Fort Collins, found the garage on fire and two vehicles inside. He called 911.
Brighton Fire Rescue said there were reports of an explosion in the garage, but the cause of the fire is under investigation. Nobody was inside the home when it caught on fire.
Firefighters from Thornton and North Metro Fire Rescue were helping Brighton firefighters to extinguished the blaze.
What happened next led to the New Year’s Day rescue of the two dogs trapped inside the burning home.
When Romero pulled up to the house, another man was already out front knocking on the door to see if anyone was home. Romero joined him. But they couldn’t hear anyone. So they began banging on the windows.
Still, there was no response.
Finally, the pair kicked down the door. As they entered the home, smoke was just beginning to seep into the house.
Thatap when Romero heard a voice. The voice — a human one — was coming from the camera on the home’s doorbell. It was the homeowner. Romero then learned that only the family’s two dogs were home.
“I’m a dog person,” he said. “To hear that there were two dogs — thatap pretty much people to me.”
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— Brighton Fire Rescue (@BrightonFire)
So he jumped into action, Romero said. He found one medium-sized dog, possibly a shepherd breed, downstairs. He thinks the other was an English Bulldog, was upstairs.
“Of course, they weren’t happy to see us,” Romero said of the dogs. “But they weren’t trying to get at us either.”
The two men, he said, carried the dogs outside and put them in the other man’s vehicle. They were safe.
