When firefighters get on the scene their first order of business is saving all the people.
The next step is locating and saving the family pets.
Every year 60,000 pets die in house fires in the United States.
Deborah Smith, the owner of Invisible Fence Brand of Maryland, said that’s because they usually get frightened and hide.
“It's harder to find them, therefore more smoke is inhaled, and they usually don't make it.“
On Thanksgiving, a family lost their home in Columbia due to a kitchen fire caused by an unattended stove.
Denise Weist, the Spokesperson for Howard County Fire and Rescue, said Firefighter got everyone out safely, but they had one more life to save.
”They were able to resuscitate the dog enough to bring it to an emergency vet,“ said Weist.
A big help in saving the dogs was the pet oxygen mask that Invisible Fence brought to Howard County Fire and EMS a few months ago.
Each department was given three reusable masks, and this is the first time they’ve used one to save a life.
”I'm so happy to have been a small part of that,” Smith said. “From what I understand the dog's life was saved as a result of it. The oxygen masks that they had before were not big enough to encapsulate over small nozzles.“
The family is being helped by the red cross.
We're told that they were able to pick their dog up from the vet.
