Eagle Mountain mother tries to pick up the pieces after fire rips through home, injures pets
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- Fire crews give oxygen to two dogs rescued from a house fire in Eagle Mountain on Tuesday, May 27, 2025.
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- The aftermath of a fire that destroyed the inside of Lindsay Paxton’s home Eagle Mountain on Tuesday, May 27, 2025.
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- Fire Crews perform emergency care procedures on two dogs rescued from a house fire in Eagle Mountain on Tuesday, May 27, 2025.
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- Fire Crews perform emergency care procedures on two dogs rescued from a house fire in Eagle Mountain on Tuesday, May 27, 2025.
Lindsay Paxton of Eagle Mountain is doing her best to navigate a devastating situation after her house caught fire, leaving her family temporarily displaced.
According to a social media post on the Saratoga Springs Fire & Rescue Facebook page, the agency assisted the Unified Fire Authority and Lehi Fire Department in responding to a home in the Ranches area near Nolen Park on Tuesday morning.
Paxton said she was driving to work when she started getting notifications on her phone about rising temperatures on the smart thermostat inside her home.
She was able to pull up a camera inside the residence from her phone where no smoke was visible, but audio could be heard of the fire alarm going off and her dogs barking.
“I was like ‘OK, are they screaming because of this sort of fire?'” Paxton said. “But I was too far away. Like, I was stuck in crazy traffic going to Draper for work, so I couldn’t turn around and get there in any fast amount of time.”
Fortunately, she was able to get a hold of a neighbor who thought it may have been a false alarm. But once he looked inside the home, he realized a fire had sparked.
“He had to break my back door (to get inside) while he didn’t have shoes on to try and put out the fire,” Paxton explained.
The neighbor, who coincidentally works for a fire department, went inside the burning home to get the dogs out but initially couldn’t find them.
Fire crews arrived to put the fire out. They had to wear oxygen masks inside the home due to all the smoke and eventually were able to rescue two golden retrievers.
“Fire personnel provided emergency care to two dogs suffering from smoke inhalation, using specialized equipment designed to deliver oxygen to animals. After being resuscitated, the dogs were transported by the homeowner to a veterinary clinic for further evaluation,” the fire department said in its social media post.
Aside from the dogs, no one else was home at the time of the fire.
“I’m just glad my kids weren’t there,” Paxton said. “They were at a sleepover with their grandma. So I’m glad that no humans were there, because, obviously, if they’d been there, I would have been there, but that would have been traumatic for them.”
As of Wednesday, a cause of the fire hadn’t been determined. But according to Paxton, it originated somewhere in the kitchen, where the dogs were located inside of a kennel.
Paxton, affectionately known by friends and loved ones as “Pax,” said while she’s relieved that she and her three kids were not in the home at the time of the inferno, the health of her dogs is uncertain.
The family has a female golden retriever and a boy mixed golden retriever. Both suffered significant levels of carbon monoxide poisoning, though recovery may be more intense for the male, whose doctors checked for pneumonia, permanent eye damage and other symptoms.
Paxton said both dogs ultimately were taken to another veterinarian in Salt Lake County to receive care, and costs have already exceeded $4,500 after one day.
“I mean, I’m kind of overwhelmed … to be honest,” she told the Daily Herald. “I’m like, ‘What do you do?'”
In addition to the two dogs, Paxton said her family also has cats — that all were located and safe — as well as chickens and rabbits that remain on site at the Eagle Mountain home.
The mother and her children are staying with family in Spanish Fork until they can figure out a temporary place to go while their home is repaired.
But it’ll be at least six months before they are able to return home, which Paxton said has been difficult explaining to her children.
“They don’t fully understand. So it’s like, we can’t go inside (the home) … but we do have to go back and collect eggs from the chickens and take care of them. But you can’t go in the house … and like, I’m sorry I can’t get these things for you,” she said.
Paxton said her kids are adopted, and some of the items from their birth parents were likely destroyed in the fire.
In the midst of reeling from this unexpected occurrence, Paxton said she is grateful for neighbors and community members who have offered to help in various ways.
“Everyone’s been phenomenal. Like, so many people have reached out,” Paxton said.
Her neighbor Lauren Andrews has started a GoFundMe campaign to help raise money and cover veterinarian bills for the two dogs.
“Our neighbor is a single mom. She is going to have to rebuild her home, but she and her kids are safe, she has family to stay with and she is working with her insurance on the rest,” the crowdfunding page reads.
The Unified Fire Authority is said to be investigating what caused the fire.
