BAXTER, Iowa — Blake Iske and Lydia Pierce came home to a house on fire on Saturday.

“We came home around 11 p.m. and she opened the door to the house and it was smoke filled,” Iske said.

The Baxter couple had just bought the house two weeks prior. Iske, a firefighter with the Baxter Fire Department, tried to extinguish the fire.

“Grab my fire extinguishers and I kind of just came in here where I seen the fire over there in the corner of the kitchen, started hit it, hit it with a fire extinguishers. And then once my fire extinguishers went out, I came back out, grabbed the garden hose, and then I hit it a little more,” Iske said.

Unfortunately, Iske and Pierce’s pets, two dogs and a cat, passed away in the fire.

Iske’s rapid response likely saved the house from being a total loss.

“Any other person that didn’t have the experience, they would have just opened that door and then just get fed the fire oxygen and then next thing you know, it took 10 to 15 minutes for the fire department to even get here. So then the house would have just in that case, been burned down to the ground,” Iske said.

Since the fire, the Baxter Community has shown an outpouring of support, starting a GoFundMe for the couple.

“There’s like, no words I can honestly just explain how much support we’ve been given and offered, and it’s just absolutely amazing,” Pierce said.

To donate to visit the GoFundMe website.