University Drive

Plantation Firefighter and Family, Including Pet, Saved From Early Morning Fire Inside Townhouse

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  • Fire crews were able to save a family, including their car, from an early morning fire in Plantation.

An early morning fire swept through a Plantation firefighter's townhouse Tuesday.

Crews responded to the scene in the 500 block of N. University Drive around 5 a.m. No one was hurt, but firefighters had to give the family cat oxygen after rescuing it from inside.

Firefighter Henry Bernard said he and his family were asleep when their smoke detectors saved their lives.

"Couldn't get down my steps, the smoke was a little too heavy, so I woke up my family, got them out of the house," he said. "If the smoke detectors didn't go off inside my house it would have burned through my stairs and I'd have been jumping out of my windows, because it was right underneath my stairwell."

Bernard said a water heater under his stairs caught fire and quickly spread through the first floor.

"It happens to everybody, I've been on these fires and I tell people all the time, 'sorry for your loss and everything,' now with your own, it's kind of reality," he said. "It's one thing to see it without gear on, it's another thing to go in it with gear on." 

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