We’re just settling back down after a fire alarm in our building. We’ve had a lot of notices posted about fire alarm testing that’s supposed to be happening at the end of the week, so when the alarm went off both in our unit and externally, we weren’t sure what to think. We looked at each other, looked at our two cats, and decided to head outside to see what was going on.
Once outside our unit, we could see others walking out, and then we could see fire department personnel coming into the building — clearly time to evacuate for real. After a few minutes outside, we were able to determine from the fire crew that the fire was not serious, but we were already deep in thought about the fact that we didn’t have a proper plan to deal with them if there was a real emergency.
Since I began typing this, the fire alarm has gone off a second time — this time, as a result of the fire department trying to get things reset. So we got a second chance to “practice.” One of our cats is deaf and has no reaction to the alarm, AND he enjoys hopping into his crate at every opportunity, so he’s easy to scoop up. The other cat is the problem. He is already skittish, and he disappeared into an unreachable point under a couch immediately.
So what we’re trying to figure out is, what is the right thing to do? How long is too long to spend trying to save a cat who isn’t going to cooperate? I hate the idea of just leaving him behind in a real fire, but I’m not sure there’s a practical alternative.
I’d like to hear thoughts from the rest of you, especially if you have experience with this. You’re more than welcome to contribute if you have non-cat pets, but my initial thought is that cats may pose a problem that other animals might not.
Make it so that there are no unreachable points. Might be difficult but if the cat’s reaction is to go into an unreachable spot when there’s a fire alarm, I don’t see an easier way.
Perhaps desensitize the cat to loud noises although that could go either way.
Leave the door open so the cat can escape on his own. The cat ain’t gonna sit there and burn because he afraid to come out from under the bed.
Retrieving the cat afterwords might be a challenge but at least he wont be dead.
This is a good reason to have your cats microchipped even if they are 100% indoor cats. A lot of animals end up at various shelters after a fire or other disaster. Having a microchip is the best way to make sure they get back to you and not adopted out.
My cats come running if they hear the jingle of the laser pointer (it’s on a keychain). I tested it during fire alarm testing and was able to get them into their carriers.
I’m not 100% sure of that. A really terrified animal might be afraid to come out from behind the sofa until it is far too late to escape. Also, smoke is a stealthy killer.
But…yeah, leaving the door open is a half-measure that’s better than no measure at all…or than staying inside and desperately trying to wrangle the cat into the carrier, and getting caught yourself.
MichaelEmouse is right: make sure there are no unreachable areas. (Easier said than done, alas. My sister has four cats – !!! – and a very, very cluttered house. It would take a total redecorating job to eliminate such hiding places.)
As another half-measure, could you chase the cats outdoors? Okay, a bad thing – they’ll get lost, get stolen, get killed in traffic – but it’s better than certain death by burning. Just use a broomstick and force them out of the hiding spot, and then sweep them out the door. Any chance is better than no chance… (???)
Cats die all the time in house fires because their instinct is to run and hide. If you leave the door open, they may not take the opportunity to escape. Plus, leaving doors open helps fires spread more quickly.
I would work on desensitizing your cat to loud noises and getting him used to the carrier. Also, you can get those stickers for your doors or windows that indicate to the firefighters that X number of pets live there, so if they have time, they can possibly snag your cat. Those stickers saved a friends cat years ago - a firefighter looked for her cat and found it under the bed.
That’s true, and might be possible. But the idea of doing that and having it turn out to have been a false alarm is difficult to swallow.
I do need to look into the sticker idea, MrsBear99. No guarantees, obviously, but as with the other suggestions (which I am very much appreciating), a small chance is better than none.
Another upside of eliminating unreachable areas is that if your cat gets hurt or sick, its instinct may be to hide in such a place. If your cat were hurt or sick, I think you’d want to reach him.
That and places which are only reachable by cats often amass a lot of random stuff and crap. Not figurative crap.
As an aside, if lifting a couch difficult for you? Unless I had some kind of disability or an inordinately heavy couch, I’d flip that shit and not because I’m a physically impressive specimen.
I’m not a cat person and my reaction to this: I’m not 100% sure of that. A really terrified animal might be afraid to come out from behind the sofa until it is far too late to escape. is call it evolution in action. If a cat or a rat or anything else is too stupid to run away from a fire they are useless.
Get out. Grab the kitties if they cooperate on your way out, but the answer to the question, “how long” is not at all. One of three things is going to happen: there will be a fire alarm, but no fire, or there will be a fire that will not affect your unit or there will be a fire that does involve your unit.
In two of those cases, you come back home and there they are and you give them extra scritches and treats until they forgive you for that horrible noise. In one, you all die, potentially in less than a minute. More realistically, 5 or 10. Can you reasonably count time when you’re in a panic chasing a cat while fire alarms are going off? You cannot. Your responsibility to your fine wife is you get you (and her) out of the apartment as soon as is possible.
We had some experience with this dealing with tornadoes in MO. Once we figured out that we might really need to get kitties into the evac room in a hurry, I started feeding them there, so they were used to heading there in a hurry (we don’t free feed). Use canned food, or a certain phrase, or keys jingling, to make it Pavlovian. Food time, they show up in a hurry to room “x”.
Then I shut the door every time, which freaked one of them out, but she got used to it.
Then introduce the crates, in that room. Etc, etc.
On the day the tornado brushed our house, I got 2 of the 3 cats I into the room, with all of us (4), plus 2 large dogs. (The house was damaged, we were all fine, including the reluctant cat.)
Since you want to build up tolerance for quick crate loading, you probably want to continue a little farther in the positive conditioning than I did, but it can be done, if you put in a few minutes a day, around feeding times. Just take it in slow steps.
when i moved into a high rise i knew i needed a better plan to get the cats out. with one cat at 20 lbs the idea of wrestling them into carriers was not feasible. i bought a cat pram. the cats all love the pram!
we had occasion to test my emergency plan when the alarm went off around 5 am one morning. the 20 pounder went right into the pram. the 7 pounder hid under the ottoman. use of treats got her out from under and into a pillow case. ( i keep 3 pillowcases and clothes for me by the front door) i couldn’t find the 9 pounder, he wasn’t under the bed, chairs, or ottoman.
i left the unit with 2 out of 3 cats, closing the door behind me. our building is plaster, concrete, and metal, so it has a good fire rating.
by the time i wrestled the pram down 10 flights of stairs the fire was out (couch fire, candle fell), and we were able to come back up the elevator.
when i got back to the unit, the 9 pounder was under the ottoman eating the treats i had used earlier. our building keeps records of what units have pets or people needing help to get out. the fire was on the floor below me, close-ish but not directly under mine.
i felt bad about leaving the furface behind, but felt that he would be alright with the fire rated door, concrete floor and ceiling, and plaster walls. there was no smoke in the hall, and no smell of smoke in the fire exit.
he did get major cuddling when i got back. all of them got a can of fancy feast to help get over the crazy start of the day.
One of my cats will panic and hide. There is no way I can make the house so that there are no inaccessable places and anyone who thinks this can be done has never had a cat. One of this cat’s favorite places is on top of the highest cupboard in the kitchen. She goes on the counter, on the refrig, on the lower cabinet and on the higher one. How would you suggest I keep her from going up there? And believe me I cannot get her down from there. Her other hiding places are so good that I do not even know where they are! I can only hope we never have a reason to evacuate with the cats.
I’d love to condition her to come and get in her carrier, but it has taken three years to condition her not to run and hide for the rest of the day every time the doorbell rings or a strange voice is heard in the house. (She had a very traumatic childhood.)
One thing that strikes me is that if you know where your cat has gone to ground or is likely to have gone you can tell the firefighters and enhance the chance of rescue.
We had a fire when I was in high school - we lost everything, the whole apartment bulding went up.
My sister was home alone when the fire broke out and spent a very few short minutes trying to wrangle our two cats into a carrier. She had to give up when visibility was nil and had to crawl out of the building (down a flight of stairs even) on her belly due to the thick smoke. Please don’t take that kind of chance.
Well, to be fair, fire is not something most animals have much evolutionary exposure to. Cats are mostly evolved as predators, with a non-trivial ability to escape being prey, and a whole bunch of mating behaviors, but fire hasn’t had that big a part in their evolution.
(Kind of like humans and molten lava. We really are very poorly set up, at an instinctive level, at knowing what to do with that stuff.)
As noted above, a cat’s natural instinct, with danger it can’t directly perceive, is to get behind/under something and freeze. That is an evolved behavior that suits them quite well in most circumstances. It’s almost the opposite of “evolution in action.”
MichaelEmouse: good point: shooing the cat out the door…only to learn it was just a fire-drill…would really suck. Type I Error meets Type II Error. Nobody wins.
Are you seriously suggesting that fire fighters should risk their own lives to enter a burning building to search for a cat? I’m all for them going in to find people that might be missing, but the risk isn’t worth it for a cat.