Rachael Ray is grateful for "being alive" after experiencing a house fire, severe flood damage to her home, and losing her dog in the last 18 months

When asked what she's most grateful for, Rachael said: "Being alive.

"When I lost my dog I was so grateful that I could be with her the last several months of her life.

"She died in my arms ... I felt guilty and grateful at the same time ... People suffered actual human loss from COVID or because they couldn't get care ... and how many people died alone."

Rachael's New York City apartment was badly flooded in August when Hurricane Ida hit.

She said: "We weren't there.

"Leaks became bigger and the roof became worse and we thought we had repaired everything... then Ida... the whole apartment, it was just raining inside."

The flood came after a huge fire ripped through her home on Chuckwagon Trail in Lake Luzerne, New York, in August last year, and she has put that down to "bad luck".

Speaking on 'Extra', she said: "The chimney burped under the roof, that's just life.

"So many people wrote to me and reached out and said we lost so much too, I mean that's just bad luck."

Fortunately, the 53-year-old celebrity chef, her husband John Cusimano, her mother, and her pet pooch all got out safely from the fire.

Shortly after the blaze in August 2020, the star admitted she was doing "OK".

She wrote on Twitter: "Thank you to our local first responders for being kind and gracious and saving what they could of our home. Grateful that my mom, my husband, my dog... we're all okay. These are the days we all have to be grateful for what we have, not what we've lost. (sic)"

But she had lost her phone in the fire, so was having difficulty contacting her friends and family.

She added: "...I *did* lose my phone (posting through a team member) Thank you for all the well wishes, concern and outreach, but can't return texts and calls at the moment...! (sic)"