At 2 a.m. on September 17th, the Butler family was asleep in their home in Bradenton when a fire broke out in their attic.
As the fire spread through the family’s home their alarm rang but not for a very short time.
Homeowner Leroy Butler, said:
“It only lasted a short ‘beep beep’ and then it was already on fire. It was gone.”
The fire continued to ravage furniture, setting the ceiling on fire, while the family continued to sleep.
But their family dog, Zippy, sensed danger was around him and began to bark around the house to alert his family.
Butler shared:
“He was back and forth. He was from bed to bed, back and forth.”
The Jack Russell terrier was dead set on running back in forth through the home to get his family out of the house.
According to the The Bradenton Fire Department, the fire spread from the attic, near the air conditioning unit – but how the fire started is unknown.
Thankfully the family was able to get out but there was one member missing: Zippy.
Leroy attempted to go back in and get him but the fire had become too big.
Butler went on to share:
“The floor in the living room was all on fire so there was nowhere for him to run out. Even if the smoke was this high. He was a short little dog. There was nowhere for him to go.”
All the little dog could do was wait for the firefighters to extinguish the blaze. And when they were finally able to get to Zippy — it was too late and the smoke had killed him.
The family is now without their home, their dogs or any photos of the all the moments they shared with each other.
Butler continued:
“We adopted him as a pet, so we can only, I can only say he was a good dog. He only did what he could. He would let me know if someone was outside. With the smoke, he still did his job. That’s just one thing and one person that I couldn’t save and one person I couldn’t get to.”