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Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend September 28, 2005 Ace, held by CATS Director Jan Whetstone, suffered most in an apartment fire where his brother and two sisters were rescued last month. All four are well on their way to adoption. Mail Tribune / Jim Craven Kittens survive fire CATS nurses the four felines back to health By BUFFY POLLOCK for the Mail Tribune Four kittens rescued from an apartment fire that killed their mother are mewing, climbing and purring their way toward a full recovery and adoption. While homes have been found for three of the 4-month-old felines, staff and volunteers at Committed Alliance To Strays (CATS) in Medford are holding on to a fourth in hopes of tracking down the family who reluctantly surrendered him after the fire left them homeless. CATS Director Jan Whetstone said the kittens’ chance at recovery from the fire had been "touch and go" for several weeks. Just last month, the tiny kittens were trapped inside a Central Point apartment building during a kitchen fire. The apartment was home to a disabled single mother and her daughter. While the mother was on a trip to get a birthday cake for her daughter’s 10th birthday party, the toaster in the apartment’s kitchen caught fire. Advertisement The kittens’ mother, Lulu, was caught in the kitchen and did not survive. But the kittens were huddled beneath a stairwell in another part of the apartment. Burned out of her home, Kelly Rankin reluctantly sought the help of CATS just days later. "She was obviously very distraught. Her friend knew about us and about what we do, so she and her friend brought them (the kittens) down to us," said Whetstone. "Normally, we only take stray and abandoned cats. That’s what we do, but because of what these little guys had already been through, we said immediately, ‘We’ll take care of your kittens.’ " Whetstone said over a period of weeks the kittens graduated from warm formula in bottles to nibbling on soft canned food and, finally, to eating dry food. The four felines — two calico sisters dubbed Indi and Summer, a yellow-orange tabby male named Harley and a black and white male known as Ace — have tested negative for feline leukemia and will be spayed and neutered in about two weeks. Of the four, Whetstone has personally kept Ace near her side as he was the weakest from the beginning. When the foursome arrived at CATS, Whetstone said Ace was missing the fur along his spine and was listless and extremely weak. "Of the four of them, he shows the most signs of having been through the fire," Whetstone said. "But he’s a real kick. He’s obviously very happy to be here. He’s coming along just great." Fire District 3 Captain David Shawson was surprised to learn that any of the four survived. Shawson, who retrieved the kittens from beneath the stairwell of the smoke-filled apartment and treated them with oxygen, had doubts about their chances. "All of the kittens and the adult cat we found upstairs (a second adult survived) were not doing well at all. They were exposed to a lot of smoke and toxic gases," said Shawson. "Animals are not as lucky as humans because they don’t have the intelligence to figure out where to go. � "I’m really surprised that any of them made it. It wasn’t very likely that any of them were going to survive." A far cry from just surviving, Whetstone said the foursome were on the way to becoming ordinary, mischievous kittens. It’s unclear what happened to the adult cat that was rescued. "(The kittens) had a rough start," she said, "but everything has gone just perfect in these little kittens’ world ever since. They’re all very lucky to be here and I think they’re going to do all right." Whetstone said Harley, the orange and yellow tabby male, would be saved for Rankin and her daughter. On Monday, Whetstone said she had lost contact Rankin, who was last living in a motel room after the apartment fire. "We will keep this little yellow kitten until we hear from Kelly," she said. In addition, Whetstone said volunteers had stepped up with an offer to help decorate a bedroom in cats and kittens for Rankin’s 10-year-old daughter. The day of the fire, the girl was to be surprised by her mother with a newly decorated bedroom. CATS is on the Web at kittensandcats.org. Buffy Pollock is a free-lance writer living in Medford. E-mail her at [email protected]. Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2005 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. 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