Dogs alert Rockledge owners to fast-moving house fire

ROCKLEDGE — Not all doggies wear superhero capes but for one Yorkie — and a neighboring pooch — that has changed, after both canines alerted owners to a harrowing house fire nearby.

Two Rockledge neighbors roused from sleep about 4 a.m. Saturday by their barking dogs were able to race outside to see the orange glow and towering flames burning through a house at 3871 La Flor Drive.

Sean Mirsky, awakened by Minnie Falcon, a year-and-a-half-old Yorkie, quickly ran into the smoke and flame-filled home to remove a woman and her Shih Tzu as the fire gutted the garage.

“It was in the middle of the night and Minnie was barking and growling. She led me downstairs and I could hear my door rattling. I opened the door and I could feel the heat. My neighbor’s house was an inferno,” said Mirsky, who then woke his family to get them to leave out of fear the fire at the neighbor’s house would spread to his.

“Everyone was asleep,” he said.

Mirsky, the 47-year-old co-founder and chief strategy officer of rocket propulsion manufacturer Vaya Space, still in his T-shirt and boxers, ran barefoot to the home to get the attention of the neighbor, who uses a walker, inside the fully engulfed house.

“I could hear her inside saying, ‘Help me, help me.’ She usually walks with her walker. Both she and her husband pretty much keep to themselves. I was able to carry her and her Shih Tzu out of the house,” he said, adding that the woman's husband had left for work a short time before the fire started.

The woman’s Saturn car then caught fire as neighbors spilled out into the street and looked on as the roof partially collapsed and the car in the driveway burst into flames. The heat turned the Saturn’s tires into a rubbery slag and peeled off the paint.

Mirsky also led another couple from their nearby home as another neighbor, Cecil Powell — who also had been awakened by his dog — ran back into the woman’s home to retrieve a cat. The cat later ran off, Mirsky said.

“Just glad that Minnie got my attention. She was determined,” Mirsky said.

More than a dozen Rockledge Fire Department engines responded to the site a short time later and began to contain the fire, keeping the flames and embers from spreading past the property to surrounding homes.

“It looks like the fire started in the garage,” said Rockledge Assistant Police Chief Donna Seyferth. “The home is a total loss. It took a while to contain but there were a ton of fire engines that responded,” she said, adding that the homeowner and two pets were unharmed.

A small dog, however, perished in the fire, Seyferth said.

The Brevard County chapter of the American Red Cross responded to the displaced family to offer assistance. A GoFundMe account to help the couple that lost their home was being put together, Mirsky said. The state fire marshal had also examined the burned-out remains of the home to determine a cause of the fire. An investigation is ongoing.

J.D. Gallop is a criminal justice/breaking news reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Gallop at 321-917-4641 or jgallop@floridatoday.com. X, formerly known as Twitter: @JDGallop.