Aida Kelly was losing patience. It was around 12:45 a.m. and her standard poodle, Squilliam, would not stop barking.
He paced between the kitchen and her bedroom for 10 minutes, getting louder each time he reentered her room. Kelly said she was half asleep with her CPAP machine running and initially tried to shoo him away. He kept at it, and eventually she realized something must be wrong.
“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s going on?’” said Kelly, who lives in West Milford, New Jersey. “He never does that.”
She jumped out of bed and realized the back wall of her home was engulfed in flames. She said she could hear glass windows shattering as the blaze spread.
Kelly ran back for her phone that morning and called 911. She grabbed Squilliam and a few belongings and ran for the front door.
The smoke alarm started sounding as they left. Had she waited for it to go off, Kelly said, she believes they would not have made it out alive.
“My fire alarm was my dog going back and forth barking,” Kelly said.
Kelly has lived in the house for 12 years, she said. Her husband and son were not home that evening.
Michael Moscatello, West Milford’s fire marshal, lives around the corner and arrived at the scene that day, June 19, to investigate the fire.
“When I got there, the fire had already been about halfway through the home,” he said, noting that the flames were spreading quickly.
Moscatello said there could have been a different outcome if not for Squilliam.
“He gave her a lot more time to escape, considering how quick the fire traveled through the home,” Moscatello said.
Moscatello was a firefighter for 35 years, and he said this is not the first time he has seen a dog alert its owners to danger. Due to their strong sense of smell and sound, dogs have a keen ability to detect fire.
The cause of the blaze is still under investigation, Moscatello said, adding that it started at the back exterior of the home, which could explain why the smoke detector took so long to go off. The story was first reported by CBS New York.
“We’re looking at several different potential causes,” Moscatello said.
Kelly said she considers Squilliam, who is named after the “SpongeBob SquarePants” character Squilliam Fancyson, her best friend.
“He’s the greatest dog,” she said. “Everybody loves him.”
Kelly said Squilliam, 3, is often on high alert.
“He’s very smart,” she said. “I’m not at all surprised that he saved me.”
Kelly and her family are now staying with Kelly’s adult daughter, who lives about 50 minutes away. Kelly said they lost all their belongings in the fire.
“You name it — everything,” Kelly said. “I can’t digest it. It was like a nightmare.”
Still, she said, she is grateful to be alive, and for Squilliam.
“He is my hero, my angel,” Kelly said. “He watched over me.”
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