The story of Harrisonburg firefighters rescuing a dog two days after a massive fire in which everyone thought the dog was killed will air on national television this weekend.
Last year, a massive five-alarm apartment fire destroyed Harrisonburg’s Southview Apartments, displacing dozens of JMU students. A number of those students had pets. About five hours after the fire was first reported, as firefighters swept the scene, one man was reunited with his dog, Echo, in a moment that quickly went viral.
But two days passed, with Kayla Blake thinking she had lost her four-legged friend, Rebel, forever. Then, a miracle happened.
When she stopped back by the complex with a friend to look at the burnt building, she heard barking coming from her old window.
She immediately called police and the fire department, who were able to walk up to the third floor through the debris. There, they found Rebel miraculously still alive, almost untouched, besides a burn on his nose, in the corner of her room under a desk.
“They walked up within a few minutes, five or six minutes later, we heard one of the firefighters yell, ‘We got him!’ and he looked out the window and gave me a thumbs up,” said Blake.