A Northern Irish family were alerted to a blaze in their home in the early hours of Tuesday morning by their pet dog.
UTV that the family of four were sleeping in their Campsie Park home in Dundoland, Co. Down, when the family pet started barking frantically at around 1am.
The parents, one teenager and one young child were trapped in the upstairs of the home as smoke began to fill the house. Firefighters quickly responded to the scene and extinguished the fire, which originated in the kitchen.
Responders found that the home was not fitted with a smoke alarm.
Fire safety experts warn that every home should be fitted with at least two working smoke alarms.
In rental properties, landlords are obliged to provide a mains-wired smoke alarm, a fire blanket, emergency lighting in common areas and an emergency evacuation plan in multi-unit dwellings, while rental units that do not form part of a multiple unit must have a fire blanket and either a mains-wired smoke alarm or at least two 10 year self-contained battery operated smoke alarms.
