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Dog helps Glen Allen women escape house fire

Posted at 7:31 AM, Aug 31, 2016
and last updated 2016-08-31 07:35:41-04

HENRICO COUNTY, Va. -- Two women escaped a Glen Allen house fire Wednesday morning thanks - in part - to a dog.

"He was making some funny sounds and I knew something was terribly wrong," Joyce Lieser, 72, said about her roommate's dog.

Lieser sent her roommate upstairs to figure out what was going on.

"It was the smoke and fire," Lieser said sitting outside her fire damaged Darrowby Road home. "She [her roommate] left a cigarette in an ashtray and I guess it fell onto the bed or something."

Lieser, her roommate, and her roommate's dog all made it out of the home alive. The roommate suffered minor burns and was treated at the scene.

"We could have gotten injured very badly," Lieser said about the 4 a.m. house fire.

Henrico Fire investigators ruled the fire accidental in nature.

"Units arrived to find flames coming from a second story bedroom window," Henrico Fire spokesman Captain Taylor Goodman said. "The [bedroom] blaze was quickly contained, although fire personnel spent quite some time checking for hidden fire and fire extension. The incident was under control in less than 20 minutes from arrival."

The Red Cross is helping Lieser and her roommate with living accommodations. Lieser said she hoped insurance would help repair the home where she has lived for 35 years.

Joyce Lieser

This was not the first time smoking in bed has impacted Lieser's life. Both her daughter and granddaughter died in a 1992 house fire in Chesterfield, she said. Someone smoking in bed caused that fire as well, she shared.

Henrico Fire officials reminded smokers to never smoke while in bed, and to always use a proper ashtray to fully extinguish cigarette butts.

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