Orford boy saves mum and pets from house fire started by pet dog Doug

Finley Evans, from Orford, was getting ready for school at their home on Greenwood Crescent when he wandered downstairs to find smoke pouring out of the kitchen.

Joanne Boniface, grandma to Finley, told the Warrington Guardian how he instinctively shouted his mother Katie and alerted her to the situation, saying: “Mummy, there is lots of smoke.”

He then grabbed their dog Doug and cat Tigger and ran out of the house.

Katie, who was pregnant at the time, raced downstairs to see the air fryer had caught fire while being sat on top of the cooker.

“She picked it up and it went up in flames,” Joanne said. “She ran and threw it out into the garden.”

Joanne, who lives around the corner, said how Katie had cooked a chicken in the air fryer the night before but had turned it off.

Finley saved family pets Doug (right) and Tigger (left) from the kitchen fire (Image: Supplied)

After one-year-old border collie Doug had been let out of his cage that morning, Joanne suspects he has been able to smell the cooked chicken and jumped up for a closer inspection on the kitchen counter.

“He has obviously thought ‘that smells nice’ and has jumped and knocked the cooker on,” Joanne continued.

In turn, this began to heat up the base of the air fryer, which created volumes of black smoke through the house.

“The dog tried to kill them,” Joanne joked.

As Katie is mid-way through pregnancy, the family and Finley were concerned about her and the baby’s health, having breathed in the smoke while she removed the air fryer from the kitchen.

Finley and his pet cat, Tigger (Image: Supplied)

“We went to A&E and got her checked out after. She had minor burns on her hands,” Joanne explained.

“It would have been serious if Finn had not had called her straight away.”

After the shock of the incident, Finley, who attends Cinnamon Brow Primary, was late arriving to school and Katie took him in to explain to a teacher what had happened.

“He was upset after what had happened and he was worried about Katie,” Joanne added.

After finding out about Finley’s heroic act of bravery, the school immediately set out to praise him.

The school was proud of him and gave him a certificate and a medal in front of the school in an assembly.

Joanne said how the damage from the fire has meant the cooker had to be replaced with a new one, and the kitchen needed completely redecorating due to the smoke damage.

Speaking on her own pride for her grandson and his quick thinking, she added: “We are really proud of him and that he did the right thing. He grabbed the pets without thinking,”