Pet rabbit a fire hero

A QUICK-THINKING bunny, named Rabbit, has saved a Melbourne couple from a devastating house fire.

Rabbit's owner Gerry Finn had been home from night shift only 30 minutes when he heard the black rabbit furiously scratching at the bedroom door about 6am today.

He was shocked to discover it had alerted him to a blaze rapidly spreading through the back of his Macleod home, in Melbourne's north.

Smoke blackened the inside of the house, and flames destroyed part of the roof.

Neighbours pitched in with hoses to save the house before four fire crews arrived to extinguish the blaze.

Six days from completing a painstaking two-year renovation, the couple was stunned but relieved to have escaped the fire without injury.

Wife Michelle said Rabbit had alerted them in the nick of time.

"We were both asleep. It was very lucky for both of us," she said.

Rabbit is usually happy to roam around the house, only locked in a cage when guests arrive, she said.

"He's just sort of an inside pet but I don't think he was very impressed," Mrs Finn said.

"We've been renovating for two years - we started with a disaster, and now this.

"All that hard work gone."

A jewellery-maker, Michelle's tools and jewels were also lost in the fire.

Fire investigators believe a heater may have sparked the blaze.

A smoke alarm had been removed from the back room ceiling while the room was painted.

Metropolitan Fire Brigade commander Mick Swift said the couple owed their escape to Rabbit.

But, he said, home renovations should be no barrier to fire safety.

"The lesson to learn from this is that even if a smoke alarm is removed it can still be put high up on a shelf," he said.

Rabbit miraculously survived 45 minutes of heat and smoke inhalation before alerting his owners.

The six-month-old bunny will visit the vet for a check-up later today.

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