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Far more than anything else, I fear fire.
My travelling companion Tim had a friend who was a flight attendant. While she was on a trip once, her home caught fire and she lost a large number of cats.
This came to mind because I read a story this morning about a young woman in Los Angeles who ran toward the fires to rescue her cat.
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Would I be brave enough to do the same? I can only hope so, as I can’t imagine living with myself if I allowed my cats to die in a fire.
You try to plan for disasters but with a multiplicity of cats, this is no easy task. Cat carriers are not cheap and they are not small. How many would actually fit in a single vehicle?
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With luck, in a crisis, you might get two to share.
If they were pals like Greyson and Gus or Patches and Bob.
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But first, you’d have to catch them and frightened cats hide.
They aren’t all lying around relaxed like Panther and his girlfriend Grisabel. Even if you manage to put on a calm demeanor, cats know when something’s up.
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Luckily, my foster group never had to face more drama than a large branch breaking off the old tree by their window and it fell across the fence, not toward the house.
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Sunday, June 18th, 2011. Father’s Day.
The branch took down power lines, cutting off electricity to the neighbourhood. I was not popular.
The tree was old and unsafe and had to come down.
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Finding someone to deal with a fallen tree on Father’s Day was a challenge.
When the debris was removed, I rescued a small rose that had been crushed and hopeless gardener that I may be, managed to nurse it back to health. Leaving it behind when I left was one of my few regrets.
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The removal of that tree completely changed the surrounding ecology and there was a tremendous growth spurt in the flower beds.
But I missed my tree.
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With only seven cats to worry about now, we have containers for all and at a push we could get them all in the car, but at least two of the little dears would be hard to get hold of.
Little Man is fast and inserts himself into inaccessible corners.
Willow simply vanishes. At times we have searched everywhere for her to no avail.
Eventually, she saunters around a corner: “You called?”
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Assuming we caught them all and loaded them up before the disaster overtook us, where would we go with seven cats in tow? Hopefully we’ll never find out.
Losing my pets in a disaster would be unbearable.
But would I be brave enough…
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…to do what Scarlett did?
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Her heroism is one of my favourite animal stories.
It was reported around the world, but in case you missed it, here it is.
Even if you read it before, it’s a nice story to be reminded of in these troubling times.
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Scarlett was a stray living in a condemned garage in Brooklyn which caught fire on a March night in 1996.
Scarlett went back into the burning building four times to bring out her five kittens, even though she was badly burned herself.
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The man on the book cover is David Giannelli who was then a 19-year veteran of Hook and Ladder 175, the fire brigade that attended the blaze.
A devoted animal lover, he has rescued many over the years and when Scarlett was found, he knew where to take her for help. She and her kittens were cared for by North Shore Animal League, a wonderful rescue agency in Port Washington.
Sadly, the white kitten did not survive but the others all did well and were quickly adopted to good families.
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Scarlett was also adopted by a woman who doted on her for the rest of her days.
It was a story that touched me deeply.
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from the book:
I could only aspire to be half as brave.
A wonderful tale of a mother’s love!
I didn’t know Scarlett’s story. Many humans could take an example from her !
I live in a wildfire prone region in northern Arizona. We have 2 dogs, easier to get into a car in a hurry than 11 cats. We have emergency plans on what to shove into our 2 vehicles (dogs first, of course) and where we might go depending on which way the fire threat is coming from. Our plans are based on “panic early and avoid the rush to the exits” as there are a limited number of roadways that exist. In the mid-2000’s my mother-in-law who lived on the other side of town was on standby to evacuate. When she called us and said she could see burning embers floating in the sky we went and got her. The fire did not progress to her home, so she returned there the next day.
Thank you, Carolyn, for the inspiring story and beautiful poem!
Joanna
I have been upset by reports from the California fires of people abandoning dogs when they fled their homes. I would have taken Ollie before anything else, any possession. Yet I have seen distressed dogs wandering around on the street with fires raging behind them. What kind of people would leave their pet dog in a house to potentially burn to death?
Best wishes, Pete.
I’ve seen some interviews with men who have gone back into the fires to rescue animals. One was appealing to those who are able-bodied to stay and help the disabled/elderly/animals. One man was moving cars that had been abandoned. I would be devastated if I couldn’t get back to rescue my pets. When I had to evacuate once before a hurricane my cat was first priority, then my passport and insurance papers. It makes you realise what is important.
hi, my blogging friend, Pete, told me about you, and that you have a cat named yeti. I had a cat named yeti that was rescued as a tiny kitten from a box near the woods. he was wild and wooly and so crazy and he died close to his first birthday as he was born with hip. my other rescue kitty, olive, missed him so much. nice to meet you. p.s. I recently adopted a new teenaged tabby that I named Pete the Cat and he is crazy and sweet as well.
Bless him! Yeti was my Himalayan who was given to me as my best ever Christmas present inn 1986. She was only 5 weeks old and riddle with fleas but she was totally cool with being bathed and separated from her mother. She was with me for 17 years, travelling by air with me from NY to Washington State in 2000. There have been so many animals, especially cats in my life and all have been special in their own ways. I’ll have to check out your blog for pictures of Pete the Cat! Best wishes to him.
Thanks!