NATCHEZ — A blue tarp in the driveway covered up the worst of the things the fire stole from them.

But when Kevin Nations and his son Dennis returned to the charred remains of their Linden Drive home Saturday afternoon, the tarp had to move. They were there to bury the pets that hadn’t made it out of the house in the early morning hours of the day.

It was a heavy loss. Bear, the 13-year-old Labrador that had been a part of Kevin’s life since another fire in 2001, had perished in the smoke.

“Some people may say, ‘Oh, it was just a dog,’ but he was more than just a dog, more than just a pet,” Kevin said. “He was my baby.”

Three other dogs — including a puppy — had died as well, as had an African Gray parrot and four rabbits.

“We tried to get in and save them, but when we pushed open the door, the smoke was too much,” Kevin said. “You just feel so helpless. Everything is gone.”

The fire had come quickly. Kevin had been in the hospital in Jackson for a heart procedure for the last couple of days, and had just gotten home. He and his son decided to make a late-night run to the store — no more than 20 minutes — and when they rounded the corner on Linden Drive they could see the flames climbing into the sky from the back end of the house.

That was when they tried unsuccessfully to save the animals inside. When they opened the front door, smoke and heat had poured out, pushing them back and warping the siding on the house.

“To see this after having been in the hospital with chest pains, talk about stress,” Kevin said. “But thank God me and my son weren’t hurt.”

Kevin called the fire department at 2:14 a.m. The response was quick and professional, he said, doing everything they could.

Later, they would find two of the dogs, a mother and her whelp, under a table on which a rabbit hutch sat. Another would be located in the bedroom.

But firefighters also found a miracle. Patches, a rat terrier mix, was alive but wasn’t breathing.

“My son took Patches and did CPR, and we were able to save him,” Kevin said.

“We tried CPR on the others, but it didn’t work.”

If the flames didn’t damage something in the house, the smoke did, and Kevin and Dennis are staying in a local hotel for a few days until the insurance company decides what the next step is. If the house can’t be repaired, he’ll rebuild on the same spot, Kevin said.

Cathy Warren, a friend of Kevin’s, said friends will likely be organizing some kind of help for him in the coming days.