Photo: Orange County Fire Rescue Twitter

Lightning strike to the home from Mon. evening storms. Dog alerted resident to the fire and they evacuated safely.

A dog in Tangerine, Florida, is being hailed as a “hero” after alerting her owner to a house fire, which ultimately helped him to safety.

“It was really scary,” Rosa told local stationWESH 2 News. “At the beginning, I thought that I [could] stop it myself even from outside.”

Maggie barked and woke Rosa up, and the two wereable to make a safe escapeas fire crews arrived to flames shooting “through the roof,” Orange County Fire Rescue spokesperson Lisa McDonald told the station.

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McDonald explained that crews “worked a defensive fire and were able to knock it down, it did flare back up again,” and said she thought lighting from the previous day played a large part in the blaze.

“We believe it wasa lightning strikefrom yesterday’s storms that hit the house and that lightning festered inside the roof,” she said. “This is a 7,000 square foot home. It’s a very large home, and it was 80 percent involved with flames.”

“The homeownershould definitely thank his petfor waking him up,” McDonald added.

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Firefighters were eventually able to get the fire under control, but it caused a partial collapse on one side of the two-story home.

But Rosa is just thankful he and Maggie got out safely — and he can’t sing her praises highly enough.

“She’s my hero. I love my dog and, you know, it’s amazing,” he toldWESH 2 News. “She saved my life.”

source: people.com