Last week, a fire crew in Colorado was driving along a remote mountain road, about 5 miles from the nearest main street, when they spotted a small figure motionless in the path ahead.

At first, they thought it was a dead skunk or raccoon. 

But they were wrong.

“Once we got closer, he picked up his head and looked at us. We were like, ‘Holy crap, it’s a dog,’” Eddie Tobin, from the Archuleta County Wildland Fire Crew, told The Dodo. “We were kind of shocked that he was alive and just laying there.”

Tobin approached the frightened pup, who appeared to have internal injuries, in an attempt to win his trust.

“He was very scared about being touched. We had to sit with him for about 20 minutes and feed him bits of a granola bar to even touch him,” Tobin said.

It’s unclear exactly how the little dog came to be there, so far from civilization, but Tobin believes he’d been dumped there to perish all alone. The dog’s only hope was to wait in the road for someone kind to come along.

Thankfully, the fire crew had found him just in time.

Tobin scooped the pup up in his arms, and the crew brought him to a vet in town.

“When the vet office asked for his name, we called him Smokey,” Tobin said.

Smokey was found to have broken ribs on one side, possibly from being kicked by the person who’d abandoned him.

Now, little Smokey is on the mend — and will never be alone again.

Tobin and his fiancée have several rescue dogs, and they volunteered to take Smokey in as a foster. But after saving his life that day, Tobin’s family soon decided to save Smokey for a lifetime.

“After a night at the vet’s office, we brought him home and fell in love,” Tobin said. “We decided to keep him.”

Smokey was home.

The person who dumped Smokey there to die may never be known, but they likely never suspected their cruel act would be met by a stranger’s kindness. But fortunately, fate led Tobin and his crew to the remote spot to do just that — and for Smokey, it made all the difference.

“It was almost like it was meant to be,” Tobin said.