“Bubba saved me,” said Luis Zuniga. “I wouldn’t have come outside and realized the smoke was so bad.”

It was just after 3 a.m. when Luis of Altadena received an alert about a fire near his neighborhood.  Luis walked outside and not seeing any smoke, he stayed indoors. Suddenly he heard a strange noise. It was his landlord’s pug dog.

“I was waiting for another alert, but Bubba is the one that gave me the alert,” said Luis. “He was scratching on the door and crying.”

Luis knocked on his landlord’s door to alert him to the fires.  The landlord had no room in his car, so Luis and his roommate grabbed Bubba and started walking, finding dense smoke wherever they turned.

“We started coughing badly; the dog was shaking and choking,” said Luis. “My roommate and I had masks, but we started breathing heavily, too. I didn’t think we were going to make it if we didn’t start running.”

"Fortunately, a man drove up and offered to give them a ride to safety. They gratefully climbed in and ended up at the Red Cross shelter at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. Luis, his roommate, and Bubba have settled in and are, in his words, 'doing great.' As for the hero pug, shelter workers brought Bubba food, water, toys, and a little bed.

'He has everything,' says Luis. 'Everybody loves Bubba!'"