The Southland Firestorm: Holding the Line : Fire Victim’s Cat Found Amid Rubble of House : Rescue: Duncan Gibbins gave his life to save Elsa. She suffered burns but is expected to survive.

The estate was almost entirely gutted, but suddenly a piteous sound from within the rubble reached Sheriff’s Deputy Steven Robinson’s ears.

“I heard this cat underneath the house, meowing. It looked like a little kitten,” Robinson said. “It wouldn’t come to me, so I went to get some water to coax it out. Finally it came out and jumped on top of my head.”

And so Elsa, a gentle, much-beloved Siamese cat, was found early Wednesday, the same day her master died after a valiant attempt to save her. In a tragedy that has attracted international attention, British screenwriter Duncan Gibbins, 41, suffered fatal burns after rushing back into his Old Topanga Canyon Road guest house to rescue the friendly stray that had popped up on his doorstep a year before.

Although her paws are bandaged and her whiskers and fur singed, Elsa--named after the lion in the movie “Born Free”--is expected to pull through. She is a symbol, friends said, of the sacrifice of the man who owned her.

“She’s been burned, but she’s gonna make it,” said a friend of Gibbins who helped name Elsa and claimed her from authorities Thursday.

“She’s going to stay here,” the woman, who asked not to be identified, said by telephone from her Hollywood home. “Eventually she’s going to go back to Duncan’s (place).”

The cat was discovered huddled beneath Gibbins’ home while Robinson, who was called out from the Norwalk sheriff’s substation, swept the fire-ravaged area on the lookout for looters and trespassers. Aware of the story of Gibbins’ attempt to save his pet, Robinson brought the skittish creature to a county animal shelter in Agoura Hills.

“When I went to pick it up, it just crawled up my arms and my shoulder and sat on top of my head, so I walked back to my car with it sitting up there because it didn’t want me touching it,” Robinson said. “Back at the car I tried to feed it some chicken and some milk, but it wouldn’t take it.”

At the shelter, Elsa was examined by a veterinarian who dressed her wounds, clerk Carol Redman said. The cat appears to be a small blue point Siamese about 5 to 7 years old, and her plight has drawn phone calls from as far away as England, shelter officials said.

The feline turned up on Gibbins’ doorstep soon after he moved in, according to friends.

“She’s a beautifully tempered cat, a great huntress,” said Gibbins’ friend who lives in Hollywood. “She presented (Gibbins) with some kind of offering every day.”

The woman took exception to suggestions that Gibbins, who directed the 1991 action-adventure film “Eve of Destruction,” was foolish to jeopardize his own life for the sake of the cat.

“He certainly didn’t go into the flames. He was caught from behind,” the woman said.

She described Gibbins as a committed environmentalist and animal lover who only last week had spoken to a firefighter about how to watch out for arson fires in the dry canyon.

“He was so concerned about the environment, and he was so conscientious about people smoking,” she said. “He would go around picking up cans, picking up after everybody. He was a great, great friend of the Earth.”