Cat’s warning alerts woman to flee fire
Published: January 18, 2006
Jean Poole and her 9-month-old granddaughter may owe their lives to a cat.
When Poole lay down yesterday morning next to the baby, she had every intention to get up and fold laundry as soon as the child fell asleep. Instead, Poole dozed off, too.
She was awakened by the sound of her cat, Princess, meowing loudly.
The 7-year-old Ocicat mixed breed meows loudly when she gets excited, her owner said.
“I heard the cat sounding very agitated. She doesn’t like strangers, so I thought maybe somebody was in the house,” Poole said.
She got up to investigate. Making her way from the rear bedroom of her residence in the Newberry Estates mobile home park at 3050 Old Trail Road, Poole smelled smoke and heard the crackling of a fire.
Poole first thought something was wrong with her woodburning stove in the living room. After checking the stove, she turned and saw flames outside her picture window.
Unable to escape by the front door, Poole gathered up the baby and walked out the rear door. She then returned to get Princess.
“She must have smelled the smoke. She woke me up. I don’t know if I’d have smelled the smoke otherwise,” Poole said.
Scott Glassmyer, assistant chief of the Newberry Twp. Fire Company, said Princess awakened Poole just in time.
“It wouldn’t have been much longer until they would have been overcome by the smoke,” Glassmyer said.
A township police officer was first on the scene and tried unsuccessfully to put out the flames with the fire extinguisher from his patrol car.
By the time Glassmyer arrived with the first fire truck eight minutes after the alarm was received, the flames were shooting through the living room roof.
Glassmyer said the fire started in a trash can next to the residence and ignited the underside of the structure. The flames quickly spread inside the siding before breaking through to the interior.
Glassmyer said the cause of the fire appeared to be accidental. The 1981 model residence was a total loss, he said.
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