TOWN OF ADAMS — A rural Monticello homeowner escaped his burning house after his dog woke him up in bed Saturday night, Jan. 4.

“He was very fortunate to get out alive. He was literally minutes if not seconds away from not making it out of that house,” said Dave Soper, chief of the Argyle-Adams Fire Department.

The hero dog, Bear, wasn’t so lucky.

“The dog perished in the fire,” Soper said.

The homeowner, 67-year-old John Svendsen, was holding onto the black Labrador’s collar as he made his way downstairs from his bedroom to the nearest exit, a patio door, but he lost his grip and she slipped away in the heavy smoke filling the house.

As soon as Svendsen opened the patio door to escape, air pressure from the fire “sucked him out of the door,” said his son, Scott Svendsen of Monroe.

“Basically, Bear saved my dad’s life. That’s the way we look at it. She was a good dog,” Scott said.

The loss is personal for Scott. Bear belonged to Scott and his 11-year-old daughter, Rylee Svendsen, but had been staying with his dad after they moved.

The fire started in the chimney of the old farm house at N6985 Holstein Prairie Rd., Town of Adams, according to Soper. The chimney came up through the center of the structure from a basement wood-burning stove used to supplement heat in the home.

Svendsen’s 911 call reporting the fire came in at about 11:30 p.m. The house had already been burning for at least 15 minutes at that point, Soper said.

When he escaped, Svendsen didn’t have a phone, his glasses or clothes beyond what he wore to bed. He knocked at two neighbors’ homes before finding a phone to call 911 and report his chimney was “glowing,” Soper said.

“By the time the fire department arrived, (the fire) was already through the roof,” Soper said.

Altogether about 25 firefighters worked to put out the flames, with assistance from the Blanchardville Fire Department. The four-bedroom house is a total loss, Soper said.

Residue buildup is a major cause of fast-moving chimney fires.

“It creates this tremendous amount of heat. It can start other materials around the outside on fire,” Soper said. He recommends getting chimneys cleaned prior to each burning season and checking the chimney lining regularly.

Svendsen’s son Scott said the house had been in the family for decades, along with several other farms along the road, and his dad lost everything in the fire.

Scott stopped by the still-smoldering house the next morning. Firefighters were still excavating the last of the fire out of the basement.

“It’s shot. It’s completely lost,” he said. His dad is doing fine and staying with nearby relatives.

The loss of Bear is sad, “but she did save my dad’s life.”

“She’s pretty smart,” he said.