ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – Everything inside a home near Lake Nona is destroyed after a fire broke out in the kitchen on Thursday.
Firefighters with Orange County Fire Rescue said things could have been worse if it wasn’t for a four-legged hero, Prada. The one-year-old poodle is credited for alerting her parents through a security camera, while they were at work.
“We got the motion alert. When we saw the camera, she was barking in the kitchen. She never does that,” Nestor Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez said the motion alert on their indoor Ring camera went off again 30 minutes later. They checked the footage again.
“Everything was smokey and it was cloudy inside so we couldn’t see anything,” Americo Ledezma said.
That’s when Gonzalez and Ledezma rushed home.
“All we can think about was Prada, hoping she was okay. Material stuff, you can always replace. But her life, that’s something you can’t replace,” Gonzalez said.
News 6 met Prada Tuesday. She was white and fluffy, a change from being gray and covered in soot when firefighters carried her from the burning building.
No one was harmed in the fire, but it will take at least six months for Prada and her family to get the repairs needed to return to their home.
“Everything’s gone. All the hard work, everything we have done,” said Gonzalez. “We have to start all over again. It’s so frustrating seeing everything devastated like it is inside.”
“The good part is that it’s material. I’m glad that we are okay and that Prada is OK,” said Ledezma.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation. Investigators believe the fire started in the kitchen area.
In the meantime, the homeowners said they are staying with family nearby. They said the damages will cost upwards of $100,000 and have created a GoFundMe account to help with some of the costs.