SIX-year-old Maltese Shih Tzu, Missy, is the hero of her Digby household, after alerting her family to a fire which razed a three-bay shed, just metres from the house where they were enjoying an evening cuppa.

Jane Kirkwood, her daughter and elderly mother had finished dinner on Monday night, when Missy raised the alarm, just before 9pm.

“She was barking and I was thinking ‘what the heck’, I thought someone was coming up the driveway … it’s late,” Ms Kirkwood said.

“I pulled up the blind and I thought I could see flames, or a reflection of flames, but I didn’t know where they were coming from.

“I did a bit of a walk around … the shed was well and truly on fire, the cars were on fire … the cars were sitting outside.

“I was just in there today, cleaning up … there was nothing wrong, nothing going on when I left it.”

Ms Kirkwood said she initially tried to attack the fire herself, using a garden hose, when a tree that was touching the shed on one side and her house on the other, became involved in the fire.

“The tree had gone onto the fire and started going up (in flames),” she said.

“Normally I have my car here and we’d just tie a rope to the tree and pull it, but my car is in Hamilton getting repaired … but the fire was hot, so hot, the whole shed was glowing red, it was so hot.”

While fire services managed to pull a caravan – located on one wall of the shed – out of the fire’s path, the building and the rest of the Kirkwood’s belongings, both in and around it, were destroyed.

“There’s nothing to salvage,” Ms Kirkwood said.

“When I came out, the cars were already on fire … the garden shed at the front, it had the ride-on and all the garden tools in it, that was burning.

“The (main) shed was set up, three quarters as a workshop, with all my power tools in it, benches, timber for projects.

“The other part was storage; all our bits and bobs that we didn’t have room in the house for.”

Ms Kirkwood’s daughter, Breanna said while she knew she was “luckier than other people” who had faced fire in recent times, the loss of some of ger childhood treasures in Monday night’s blaze, was difficult.

“We didn’t lose our house,” she said.

“And all those things … books, CDs, DVDs, can be replaced.

“It’s the sentimental things, my baby blanky, graduation stuff, photos … I’m pretty sure they’re all gone.”

CFA Acting Assistant Chief Fire Officer, Terry Heafield said crews from Casterton, Merino, Grassdale, Tahara and Digby attended the scene after receiving an alert about the fire, around 8.50pm.

“The crew said the shed was fully involved in the fire, when they arrived,” he said.

“They’ve done their best to limit the exposures to other areas, moved a caravan out of the way … the fire made the tree a little bit, but they’ve extinguished it so the fire won’t get that spread to the house, through the tree.”

Asst ACFO Heaney said members required breathing apparatus and external attack, initially, due to the heat and nature of the fire.

“We haven’t been able to get inside, at this stage,” he said.

While the blaze was brought under control fairly quickly, members spent several hours gaining access to the interior of the shed and using ‘hot spot’ – heat-detecting technology – to locate elements inside the building, which continued to be of concern.

Asst ACFO Heaney said fire investigators would attend the property yesterday (Tuesday) to try and determine the cause of the fire.