Listening to her dog Bodhi just may have changed what happened from what could have been.
"I look around and saw that our patio furniture was on fire," Kim Johnson, said.
Johnson says around 5:00 a.m., her 7-year-old dog Bodhi started acting frantically causing her to finally check outside and see her wicker chair on her porch in flames.
"If he hadn't been insistent and he barked like he's never barked before," Johnson said. "Within a couple more minutes, I think the porch would've been in flames."
She was able to put her small fire out with some pots of water, but that's when Johnson says she noticed something else.
"Then, I looked up and saw the flickering light back and forth behind that fence," Johnson said. "There's another fire."
One block over flames started shooting up from the carport behind the home that Chad Bates shares with three other housemates.
"It had gone from a small fire to just completely engulfed," Bates said.
They lost four cars total including his friend's brand new Subaru.
"He had just purchased this yesterday, traded his old car and put about 15 miles on the vehicle before this happened," Bates said.
Investigators believe an arsonist started both fires at the carport and on Johnson's porch. They both said firefighters told them it appears an accelerant was used.
"Well, every minute counted," Johnson said. "Every minute counted here and over there."
Bates thinks the damage could've been far worse if Johnson hadn't called 911 when she did.
"Easily, it could've jumped to the neighbor's fence over here or it could've jumped over and caught the neighbor's car on fire," Bates said.
Johnson credits her dog for his attentiveness.
"If we hadn't listened to him, it would've been a different outcome," Johnson said.
