ERWINVILLE - After the West Baton Rouge Fire chief shared statements with WBRZ following criticism over his department's response times, documents obtained show a different timeline.

This Sunday, an electrical fire claimed the lives of two pets at a home in Erwinville.

The first call to 911 came at 2:40 a.m.

A caller reported what appeared to be a house fire, telling the dispatcher, “I think that’s a house fire.” At that point, emergency officials only had information from neighbors who could see the flames. It was not yet known whether anyone was inside the trailer.

Within minutes, several other residents called 911. The homeowners themselves contacted dispatch about two minutes after the first call, frantic that their pets were still trapped inside.

“My babies! My babies!” the homeowner cried, according to 911 audio.

Dispatch logs show at least six calls from the couple, who repeatedly told operators that their dogs remained inside the burning trailer. At one point, a dispatcher asked, “Nobody made it yet?”

Fire officials say the first fire unit arrived seven minutes after being dispatched. But records show that 10 minutes passed from the initial 911 call before the first firefighter reached the scene.

“That truck responded in seven minutes and initiated attack,” Fire Chief Butch Browning said in a previous interview.

By the time the firefighter arrived, the trailer was fully engulfed in flames. Radio traffic confirms there was no interior attack, search or rescue attempt. Browning said the response was limited to a defensive attack.

“It was strictly a defensive attack,” he said previously. 

The firefighter battled the blaze alone for about 11 minutes while family members watched from across the street. For the homeowner — a retired volunteer firefighter — the wait felt far longer.

Browning said additional personnel would not have changed the outcome.

“It wouldn’t matter if a big city fire department would’ve responded with four men on a truck,” he said.

A second firefighter did not arrive until about 21 minutes after the initial 911 call, according to dispatch records.