A firefighter has adopted a puppy that was trapped under debris and burned in a Melbourne factory blaze and has given her a very fitting name.
Two people died when the fire broke out at the building in Sunshine North in February, and it took three hours for crews to extinguish it.
“It was a really intense fire. We went in wearing breathing apparatuses doing a search and rescue,” Alex Eldridge from Fire Rescue Victoria (FRV) told 7NEWS.
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Eldridge was searching through the rubble when he saw the puppy’s “bright little blue eyes” from beneath the debris.
“I feared the worst. She was pinned under some rubble,” he said.
The firefighter managed to free her, carried her to safety, and she spent 24 hours in the veterinary clinic on oxygen and fluids.
As well as smoke inhalation, the puppy also had burns to her face and paws.
But she made a full recovery, and Eldridge and his partner Jordy could not resist applying to adopt her, and found out they were successful this week.
The couple named her Ember, with Eldridge deciding it was only fitting as he pulled her out of the fire.
“We believe this is the first time that an adoption has actually occurred from a rescued animal in the organisation,” Eldridge said.
It remains a mystery who Ember originally belonged to as she was unregistered and no one came forward to claim her, but FRV personnel believe she may have been kept on the property to be a future guard dog.