Video: Former Wichita council member saves two dogs from a burning home

A former Wichita council member saved two dogs from a burning house.

Nest doorbell video footage shows Jared Cerullo run up his neighbor’s driveway and open the door of the south Wichita home. Smoke poured out as Cerullo, who was on the phone with 911, coughed and yelled “come on puppies” before propping the door open with a nearby cooler so the dogs could escape.

Cerullo said he knows opening the door fueled the fire, but it was clear from the smoke and flames that the home in a cul-de-sac near 63rd Street South and Hydraulic was going to be a total loss.

“When that wall of smoke hit me … it almost took me to the ground,” said Cerullo, who has two dogs. “I just wanted to get their dogs out if I could.”

Two dogs made it out of the Thursday night electrical fire, but two others died. The family, the Kufflers, was not home. The home at 6200 South Madison was a total loss.

“It’s everything,” Jeremy Kuffler said about still having two of his dogs, crediting Cerullo for that. “I wish they all obviously would have got out. But that’s everything to me. Material stuff can be replaced, dogs and people can’t.”

Kuffler, who was on duty as a Wichita firefighter, said the dogs that died were a miniature Australian Shepherd named Blue, who always stuck to his wife and was a watchful eye over the family and their cattle and horses in the neighboring pasture, and a Pekingese named Bear, who went everywhere with Kuffler and was his best friend.

“It’s like a kid,” he tearfully said about the loss. “But I’m thankful my kids and my wife (weren’t) home.”

Ruby and Roxie, the dogs that survived, are doing well and don’t appear to have any injuries, he said.

Some of the sentimental losses included rodeo buckles his teenage children accumulated over the years and his son’s stuffed trophy buck.

“I just don’t even know how to put it in words,” he said.

Cerullo said Kuffler has saved people’s lives and homes as a firefighter. The tragedy goes to show that even firefighters aren’t immune to such disasters, he said.

Kuffler’s wife, Chasity, had originally called Cerullo after a neighbor called her about a possible fire at their house. Jeremy Kuffler also rushed home from work.

“It’s weird being on this side of it,” he said. “Now I see what they are going through, and it’s terrible.”

Kuffler said there has been a great outpouring of support from the community. A friend helped settle them in a mobile home. They plan to rebuild at the same spot where they’ve lived for years, several doors down from Cerullo, who represented that area until being unseated in November.

“He is the reason I have two of my dogs,” Kuffler said.

A GoFundMe has been set up to help the Kuffler family rebuild. The fundraiser can be found at tinyurl.com/rew9pe76.

This story was originally published July 16, 2022 at 3:40 PM.