MUSKEGON TOWNSHIP, Mich. — Bob Palmer’s wife had just returned home after dropping her grandchildren off at school Thursday morning. Bob, 74, was trying to get an old clock working again.

When he realized something was wrong, he went to the back garage.

“I smelled something and said, ‘What the hell was that?'” Bob Palmer said. “I thought,” he said.

There was something wrong with their house of 27 years.

“And around that time he came out the back door and said, ‘The car is on fire,'” Palmer said.

Bob said he has about a “gazillion” smoke detectors in his home that haven’t started working yet. He was looking for his two dogs at home.

The dogs stayed in the backyard.

Eventually his house would go up in flames.

He remained in good spirits on Thursday. He managed to recover one of his cars on his property. He and his wife have spare clothes in storage.

“I told the neighbors, ‘It’s just a house.’ What are you going to do?’” Palmer said.

Neighbors and passersby came out in droves to Palmer’s front yard. The Palmers live on Quarterline Road in Muskegon Township, a popular road.

“In just a few minutes there were probably 12 or 14 people standing in the front yard trying to help,” said passerby Daniel Puckett.

Daniel Puckett was lagging behind on his way to work on Thursday. Anyway, it stopped.

“If I had gone and thought about it later, I would have wanted to come back to work late or not,” Puckett said.

Puckett took things one step further by opening the front door of the house and helping Bob’s wife down the stairs.

“I had to take his wife down the stairs; He can’t walk very well anymore. He had surgeries,” Palmer said.

A Muskegon County fire investigator spoke to FOX 17 at the scene. They thanked many regional organizations who intervened in the fire with them.

“It takes a village, doesn’t it? We are all one big village,” said Muskegon County Fire Inspector Jack Wydeck.

The fire inspector recommends everyone check their batteries as they turn the clocks back on Nov. 3, saying it’s a good reminder of the importance of setting off smoke detectors.

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