While completing her daily inspections of structures damaged by the raging Glass Fire in Northern California, Santa Barbara Fire Department investigator Amber Anderson rescued a kitten that had survived the fire against all odds.
Anderson was documenting and inspecting the damage to structures in Napa and Sonoma Counties this week when she first heard a faint whimper, thinking it was a mountain lion.
It took her about two minutes to discern that the cry coming from the burned remains of a truck on the property, she said.
“What was crazy was that we were already 10 days into the burning fire,” Anderson told Noozhawk. “I didn’t expect anything to survive because the conditions up there were so bad.”
When she got closer, she could tell that the whimper came from a cat or a kitten.
“Nothing should’ve survived in this area,” Anderson said. “My brain didn’t even comprehend that the cry could be from a cat or a kitten.”
She called back to the cat, whose name she came to learn was Bella, and saw a little furry head pop out from the wires of a charred tire.
“We both kind of shocked each other,” she said, adding that Bella ran back under the truck after seeing her.
Anderson got down on her hands and knees and reached under the car to pinch-hold the kitten between the shoulders.
“When I put the kitten in my arms, she just went completely limp and started purring so loud,” Anderson said.
While waiting to get in contact with local animal control, Anderson noticed Bella’s back paw was burned and bleeding, and gauzed it up with antibiotic ointment from her own first-aid kit.
She then got in contact with animal control in Napa County, which transferred Bella to an animal shelter. The kitten needed to be taken to a veterinarian before returning to the shelter the next morning.
Because Anderson knew where the kitten was found, she took it upon herself to locate and contact the owner, who was on his way to the animal shelter on Friday morning to reunite Bella with her mom and brother kitten.
Anderson was out in the Napa-Sonoma area working as part of a damage-inspection team. Through California’s mutual aid systems, responders are sent to different areas when there is any kind of emergency that is bigger than a local jurisdiction can handle, she said.
Anderson spent a week up north inspecting damages caused by the Glass Fire to see what kind of structures are more prone to ignition.
While she usually goes out as a public information officer for the Santa Barbara City Fire Department, she began acting as a damage inspection specialist to understand fire behavior and building construction to bring that knowledge back to Santa Barbara, she said.
“One of the reasons that I got into this position was to learn what I could take back to my own city,” she said. “I saw first-hand how building construction really played a part in the survivability of some of the homes.”
— Noozhawk staff writer Jade Martinez-Pogue can be reached at jmartinez-pogue@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
