With the house, Smith believed he also had lost an Australian shepherd named Blue.<\/p>\n
Blue, about 4 months old, was feared dead inside a home Northern Tazewell Fire Chief Ray Kiddy said was believed to be a total loss.<\/p>\n
But about an hour after the fire began, the dog darted out of the one-bedroom, single-story house with major smoke and fire damage.<\/p>\n
“There was a dog in there, and he just ran out of there about five minutes ago, which is amazing,” Kiddy said well after the fire was knocked down.<\/p>\n
“I was pretty surprised. As much smoke and fire as there was in there, it’s amazing he was able to survive.”<\/p>\n
The occupant’s father and owner of the home, Ed Smith, who lives directly behind the house on Loren Street, said the house has been in the family since the 1950s.<\/p>\n
The Smiths rescued two cats from the home before being too overcome by smoke to find the dog.<\/p>\n
Presumed dead, Blue’s appearance outside caused a fuss.<\/p>\n
While being held by Christopher Smith’s girlfriend, Cindy Baker, Blue was petted by firefighters.<\/p>\n
“He came out and he was wiggling,” Ed Smith said. “He looked happy. For the boy’s sake, I hope he makes it. He’s had a really bad day.”<\/p>\n
A trip to the veterinarian showed the dog’s lungs had suffered some damage from smoke inhalation, but Blue was expected to survive, Ed Smith said. As a precaution, Blue was headed to the Tri-County Animal Emergency Clinic. He was given a clean bill of health and released.<\/p>\n
It was unknown how Blue survived thick smoke and flames.<\/p>\n
“Smoke was all over the house,” Ed Smith said. “You couldn’t go in. The dog must have hid under something.”<\/p>\n
Northern Tazewell, East Peoria and Morton firefighters were called to the fire. They arrived to find the front of the house on fire.<\/p>\n
Kiddy said the fire is believed to have started in the fireplace and spread to the structure of the single-level home, where Christopher Smith was home by himself.<\/p>\n
Ed Smith said his son built a fire in the fireplace, which hasn’t been used for more than a decade, and it apparently spread to a nearby closet.<\/p>\n
Ryan Ori can be reached at rori@pjstar.com.<\/em><\/p>\n Read the original article from Journal Star<\/a>.<\/p>\n Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services<\/a><\/p>\n Hot dog! On a day Christopher Smith desperately needed some good news, he received it Thursday. The 37-year-old’s house at 214 Esser St. in Sunnyland was destroyed by a fire that was reported about 1:35 p.m. With the house, Smith believed he also had lost an Australian shepherd named Blue. Blue, about 4 months old, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-337686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337686\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/img><\/a>
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