PHOTOS: Smoke from an intense fire didn't set off alarms inside Anthony Rios' home early Monday morning but somehow triggered a video doorbell that alerted the sleeping Rios and his wife in time to escape.
The fire started inside their two-car garage sometime before 5 a.m. Monday, reducing it to ashes and crumbling planks of wood. Three cars, two inside the attached garage, were reduced to bare metal and three more damaged. "That's one for the records," Vineland Fire Department Capt. Tony Saltar said of the role the doorbell played.
Saltar said it appears the smoke was thick enough to activate the Ring electronic doorbell's motion sensor, creating an impression of motion. The cause of the fire and why the house fire detectors did not go off before the doorbell are part of the investigation, he said.