I joined the NPFD in December but hadn't heard about a cat story till this week, when we had two. One was about a cat that had gone up in tree. The other was about a cat going up, near a bunch of trees.
During our meeting this past Monday, I learned that one of the chiefs and one of the firemen had been out on a call to rescue a cat. It's nice to know that fire departments still handle those kinds of calls, but really, who else could a person rely on in that situation? I didn't hear many details other than the fact that the presence of the owner at the rescue meant that certain proven techniques could not be employed (something about a hose, a jet-stream of water, and the whole thing being finished in minutes), but eventually the tree was defelinated.
A day before, I'd responded to my pager at 11:30 at night. There was a fire of unknown origin burning outside of a residence in the Village. I made it in time to hop onto a truck, and minutes later was hosing down a fire in a sloped backyard. It appeared that the owner of the nearby house had had a bonfire that went awry. It turns out that he was cremating his cat when things got out of hand. Apparently he'd used too much gasoline to ignite the material under the cat, which included roofing tiles, railroad ties, and copper plumbing (which may have been part of the cat-holding contraption; we never did find out). I got to experience some of what it's like to put out a fire. My gloves still smell like smoke.
As for my advice: Don't let your cats out in the backyard, alive or dead.
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