KILL DEVIL HILLS, N.C. (WAVY) — A home in Kill Devil Hills is a total loss after it caught fire on the Fourth of July.
The tenants inside made it out just in time, thanks to a three-legged dog who alerted its owners on the first floor that there was a fire, which happened around 11:30 p.m. on Knight Court in Kill Devil Hills.
The first floor tenants then broke the bedroom window of the second floor tenants to wake them up and get them out.
Kevin Oliver was asleep on the second floor. He woke up to his bedroom window shattered after a neighbor broke it to get his attention. When he got outside, flames had engulfed his house and the stairs had been burned away.
“They tried calling my phone but I was sleeping, didn’t hear it. He [downstairs neighbor] grabbed something in the yard and threw it through my bedroom window and woke me up,” Oliver told 10 On Your Side. “We went out on the back porch and the stairs were already gone from the flames.”
His escape route burned to ash — Oliver told us it was the quick thinking of his downstairs neighbor who grabbed a boat and propped it up on the porch where he and his girlfriend were trapped. The pair slid down the boat to safety. They have a few cuts and bruises but they’re alive, along with their downstairs neighbors whose three-legged dog first alerted them of the fire.
“The heat was so intense. Even two doors away we were extremely hot, just feeling the heat as the house next to us melted,” said neighbor Christina Clements.
Clements and Michele Aldridge watched in horror as the flames took over their neighbor’s house on Knight Court.
“They had the big ladder going up and they just poured right into the house,” Clements said.
They immediately checked on their neighbors and brought water to the dozens of firefighters fighting the flames.
Oliver, his girlfriend and the tenants downstairs lost everything.
Clements told us they work as the managers of the Biscuits N’ Porn sandwich shop in Nags Head. They rented their home from the store’s owner.
“We’ve just been recommending go by the store,” Clements said. “Go by the owner of Biscuits N’ Porn. He owns it. It’s his employees and I think they’re staying with him right now. He’s opened up his house to his employees. They don’t have anywhere to go right now.”
The cause of the fire is still being investigated. A GoFundMe has been started to help the tenants get back on their feet.