Firefighter bitten by a cat when rescuing 15 from a burning house

EVANSTON, Illinois-NEWS AND COMMENT: This must be an inherent danger for firefighters when rescuing cats from burning buildings which, I have to say, is not that uncommon. I am reading too many stories of domestic cats killed in fires. On one occasion many cats were killed in a home run as a cat rescue operation. Often the owners of the property race out of the house and leave the cats behind.

Firefighter bitten by a cat when rescuing 15 from a burning house. Photo: Evanston Fire Department.

On this instance, at around 8:45 AM, fire officers were called to a house on fire off Dewey Avenue, Evanston, Illinois, USA. There was heavy smoke on their arrival billowing out of the first floor according to the chief, Kim Kull.

The two residents escaped. One was working in the basement and the other was asleep upstairs. The firefighters rescued 15 cats from inside the home. Great work. Regrettably, one firefighter was bitten when trying to extricate a cat. He was taken to hospital for a checkup and released.

Comment: this had to happen sometime and it probably happens more often than is reported. Although don't firefighters wear gloves sometimes? But if you are grabbing 15 cats from a burning building, with some force, and the cats are going to be terrified anyway, one of them is bound to strike out. 

The cats are surrounded by pandemonium, confusion, smoke, flames, strange people dressed up in strange clothes, noise, you name it, the cats are having to go through it. It surprises me that there aren't more examples of firefighters being bitten or scratched by cats rescued from house fires.

Source: Patch via Yahoo.