Fire Department Resuscitates Cat After Blaze

Highland Park’s Fire Department got a cat breathing again and rescued a dog though a family will be temporarily displaced after a fire broke out today in the kitchen of a home in the 2700 block of Oak Street.

No one was home when firefighters arrived on the scene to discover flames in the kitchen, according to Deputy Highland Park Fire Chief Dan Pease. “We could see flames in the kitchen area,” he said. “We had to knock out windows to ventilate.”

Three pets were in the house, a dog and two cats. “The dog greeted us at the door so he was all right,” Pease said. One of the cats died but firefighters brought the other one back to life.

“He wasn’t breathing when we found him. We resuscitated him and he started breathing again,” Highland Park Fire Chief Pat Tanner said. “We have dog and cat oxygen masks in all of our vehicles.”

A dozen firefighters from the Deerfield Bannockburn Fire Protection District, the Highwood Fire Department and the Lake Forest Fire Department joined 12 from Highland Park to put out the blaze. Eight fire trucks were used.

The cause of the fire is still being investigated but there do not appear to be any suspicious circumstances, according to Pease.

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