A couple from Santa Rosa in Northern California may well be sleeping out in the dog house with the hound who indirectly set fire to their home.
Authorities have hypothesised that the mutt’s metal drinking bowl refracted a concentrated beam of sunlight onto a wall of the home which commenced the conflagration.
“It’s a good thing we got to it in time because there’s a pretty good-sized hole burned in the siding,” Terry Weisbrich told Santa Rosa’s Press Democrat.
A flabbergasted Bennett Valley Fire Department engineer, Rene Torres was stumped by the cause of the fire, until he noticed a slightly charred dog bowl kicked aside by Terry in a rush to extinguish the flames.
“It was uncanny,” Torres said. In an instant, he said, “There was a dot of concentrated light right in that exact area” of the charred siding.
The retired Weisbrich couple suspect they may have lost their home had they not been in residence at the time and been warned by their troublesome pooch, Toby’s excited barking.
So there you have it, if you own a dog keep an eye on it, because it could well be a sinister pyromaniac just waiting for the chance to burn down your home and everything in it.
You’ve been warned!
