LEWISTON — A man and a woman escaped their burning home late Thursday thanks to a pair of dogs who began barking as the small house went up in flames.

Bert Dubois said his dogs, Sammy and Abby, began barking just before midnight. When Dubois and his wife got up to check on the commotion, they found their house filling with smoke and flames shooting out the back.

The couple escaped the burning house at 777 Lisbon St. uninjured. They got the dogs out safely, as well.

Meanwhile, a half-dozen police officers were on the scene within minutes. They began clearing apartment houses on either side of the burning building as the flames threatened to spread. It was not quick work. The tenants rousted from their apartments said they had been sound asleep when the police came knocking.

“They didn’t stop until we were all out of there,” said a woman named Joyce, who lives in an apartment next door. “They were fabulous.”

Police said flames were rolling from the back of the house when they arrived. The house, across from Androscoggin Avenue, sits back from the road between two apartment buildings.

Fire crews quickly got the fire knocked down and kept the flames from spreading to nearby buildings. They remained at the scene into Friday morning searching for hot spots and beginning an investigation.

A neighbor said Bert Dubois and his wife, Louise, have lived in the house for at least 35 years. Shortly after midnight, as firefighters continued dousing hot spots, it remained unknown whether the house could be salvaged.

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