Moment hungry dog turns stove on and sets home on fire

A ‘fat and hungry’ dog looking for food turned on a stove and set its owners’ home on fire.

Homeowner Chris DiLuzio was at work when he received a call from the fire department informing him that his home in Brook Park, Ohio, was ablaze.

CCTV footage from inside the home showed a black French bulldog named Harvey standing up on its hind legs on a chair and pawing at the stove around the knobs.

A tan-colored bulldog stood at a distance watching.

The stove could be heard making clicking sounds indicating it was turned on, and flames ignited.

Harvey eventually walked away and looked back, with the other bulldog already out of the video frame.

A later part of the footage showed a bigger fire on the stove and the flames spreading, as well as a red glow and black smoke. The tan-colored dog stepped into the frame momentarily before disappearing.

Then the fire alarm began beeping.

‘That’s him just being fat and hungry,’ DiLuzio told WOIO of Harvey late last month.

‘It was definitely panic and fear at the same time cause they said they only located one dog. My first thought process was my son, my niece, and my mother-in-law were here.’

DiLuzio said that his wife and six children and their pets were not harmed.

But they have been forced to leave their home for what could be months as it undergoes repairs.

‘We lost a lot of irreplaceable stuff that doesn’t have value,’ he added.

As for finding out that Harvey was behind the disaster, DiLuzio said: ‘If we didn’t have it on camera, it’s kinda a far-fetched tale; you wouldn’t really believe it.’

A GoFundMe page for the family does not mention Harvey, but states that DiLuzio and his wife are ‘two hard-working parents who volunteer their non-working time for the kids in the community’. 

‘I’m hoping we can help them out to get back on their feet and clean up the mess!’ wrote Nicole Prosser on the fundraiser.

The GoFundMe page had raised more than $8,500 as of Monday afternoon.

It is the latest incident of a dog causing a house fire in the US.

Earlier in August, surveillance footage captured the moment that a dog chewed a lithium-ion battery pack, causing sparks to fly and ignite a mattress and its owners’ home in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

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