Tiny Kitten Found Covered In Soot After Massive Fire Is A True Survivor

A 2-week-old kitten believed to have perished in a massive fire is recovering after being found alive in a pile of rubble.

One week after the blaze, the little cat is doing “surprisingly well,” Sara Green, director of J.B. Ogle Animal Shelter in Jeffersonville, Indiana, told The Huffington Post. The kitten, whom Green named Miracle, opened his eyes for the first time on Monday and began purring the same day.

Photo: Sarah Green

Green was talking to pet owners in Jeffersonville's Bridgeport Apartments shortly after the fire broke out in the complex last Thursday. A frantic woman told Green she had three cats — two adults and their young kitten. The two older cats died of smoke inhalation, but firefighters did not find the kitten. Green told the owner it was unlikely that such a small, young animal would have survived.

The next day, Capt. Rusty Hall and firefighter Rex Caldwell of the Jeffersonville Fire Department were searching through the debris on the scene when they spotted a small orange ball of fur, covered in ashes.

“It looked like a fuzzy play toy,” Hall told local news station WDRB. "I didn't even know it was a cat."

Green suspects the kitten managed to get underneath some sort of protective barrier that formed an air pocket and sheltered him from the heavy smoke.

Miracle was taken to a local veterinarian and given oxygen therapy. Green is now taking care of the kitten around the clock while she tries to contact the animal's owner.

Most of the residents in the apartment complex, which was nearly destroyed by the fire, only had landline phones, Green said. She worries that the kitten's owner may be homeless after the fire and unable to take back her pet.

If that’s the case, Caldwell, one of the two firefighters who found Miracle, plans to adopt him.

“He’s got a home either way,” Green said.

H/T The Dodo

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