Pet owner hopes the weekend loss of her six pets will help educate others to prevent similar losses

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – A couple is mourning the loss of six animals after a horrific fire destroyed their residence.

Raleigh Weeks, the pet owner, is hoping their story saves the lives of other people’s pets.

On Friday, Raleigh Weeks and her fiancé, Travis Turk, watched their camper and barn burn with four dogs, a cat, and a snake inside.

Weeks said she had left the camper to go to her aunt’s house for a few minutes and had taken the couple’s new puppy, Loki, along with her.

While she was away, the camper caught fire.

Minutes later, she returned home, realizing her animals were among the flames.

“By the time I did get up to where the fire was, there was no helping it. I was still tempted to run in there just because, a life without them was a life I just had not envisioned having to live so soon,” said Weeks.

The Browning, Barren River, Woodburn and Hadley Fire Department was called to the scene on Kitchen South Road.

Firefighters were informed of animals inside, but they were unable to make entry due to the fire, according to Matt King, the assistant chief of Browning Fire Department.

“It’s tough to lose any animal, but when you lose them in a fire, you know, that is a whole different ball game. It’s just a decision that has to be made. I mean, the firefighter’s safety is number one. We do what we can do. It’s just, we try everything we can do to get animals out, you know, save lives, save property, but, I mean, there’s just times you can’t do it,” said King.

King said some fire safety tips for pets involves having a dog door, putting stickers on windows to alert officials of pets in the home, and keeping your animals in rooms near windows or doors for a quick rescue.

But even with safety precautions, tragedies can still occur.

According to Weeks, this loss has been unimaginable.

“It’s very hard because I always told them that I would help them and I would protect them from all of the negativity and nastiness that comes from the world, and I would have ran into that fire had, I mean, my fiancé and my aunt were holding me down, and I think a firefighter came over there at one point and was just telling me that, ‘I know this is hard, but, they’re gone.’ So, just watching it all go down and knowing that it had happened in such a short amount of time, like a 10-15 minute time span, like, I partially feel like I blame myself,” said Weeks.

The Bowling Green Fire Department has a website where you can register your pets with them as well.

That website can be found here.

A family member of Weeks and Turk has set up a GoFundMe account online to help the couple through the tragedy.

If you would like to donate, click here.