ERA — A tiny Chihuahua alerted his owner, Gene Huckabee, in the nick of time Monday morning.
“Poncho [the Chihuahua] saved the day,” said Tommy Gray, whose in-law’s two-story wood frame home caught fire sometime between 4:30 and 5 a.m. Monday morning on Bolivar Road. “He is getting a T-bone tonight.”
There were no reported injuries.
Gene Huckabee, 77, is just grateful to be alive.
“I was lying in bed watching t.v. while sleeping off and on and all of a sudden he[Poncho] jumped up and hit my arm,” said Gene Huckabee, who is staying at his son-in-law’s home with his wife. “He barked too.”
Gene Huckabee noted the bed was tall so the Chihuahua had a hard time reaching him, but Poncho was persistent.
There was no smoke until Huckabee reached the back door and that, he said, is when “flames came out at him” singeing hairs on the top of his head.
As he reached the back porch, he placed his hand on their deep freezer where he said “it was so hot it melted and stuck to my hand.”
He was treated for some burns to his fingers described as “clear blisters about an inch long.”
Huckabee made it to a neighbor’s home where he was able to call 911 for help.
Era, Valley View, Myra, Muenster, and Gainesville Fire Department’s responded, as well as Cooke County EMS, according to Cooke County Fire Marshal Ray Fletcher.
Gray estimated about 30 firefighters were out fighting the blaze.
Gene’s wife, Virginia, was at work when she heard the home they had owned for 23 years together was burning.
“My daughter Bobbie [Barbara Gray] called me at the nursing home,” she said. “I forgot to even clock out, I just took off.”
Virginia Huckabee, 73, said she works part-time at Homestead Nursing and Rehabilitation in Collinsville, about a 45 minute drive on average from her Era home.
The couple’s two little indoor dogs —the other is a Shih Tzu — are always on her husband’s heels, she added.
Gray, who lives on the same street as “Pops and Nana” said he was about to get into the shower around 5 a.m. when his cousin called.
“It’s not a call you want to get when you are getting up, he said. “I woke up Bobbie up and we went rushing down there.”
A pig, the two indoor dogs —Poncho and Sandy — one outdoor dog and some rabbits — located on the backside of the home — were saved.
Some of the baby rabbits didn’t make it, Gray said, and the Huckabee’s cat had yet to have been located as of 2 p.m. Monday.
Gray said that while a sheriff’s deputy wasn’t the nicest to them during their family’s loss, the American Red Cross was on the scene “very quick” and everyone else in their “tight-knit community” has been more than helpful.
“Thankfully nobody was hurt,” he said. “We have received a lot of support so far.”
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