Firefighters Work to Revive Cat

It’s the subject of a thousand jokes and cartoons: firefighters rescuing a cat. But when a fire raced through a small home Monday afternoon, they really did save a feline in distress.

Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey said firefighters responding to a blaze at about 4 p.m. in the 18400 block of Tarzana Drive found a cat unconscious and barely breathing inside the empty home.

Eager to save the unidentified cat, they rushed it outside and slipped an oxygen mask on its face. Just after dousing the blaze at the single-family home, more than 20 firefighters used nearly two bottles of oxygen to try to revive the cat.

“The average person would not go through one bottle on the way to the hospital,” Humphrey said.

The cat suddenly regained consciousness and a neighbor took the animal in until the homeowners returned.

Humphrey attributed rescuing the cat to the firefighters’ determination.

“It’s all too frequent that animals are left home alone,” Humphrey said. “But firefighters simply wouldn’t give up unless they saved the cat.”

The fire, which caused about $40,000 in damage after spreading to an attic, was believed to have been started by a discarded cigarette.