The Fire Cats

Save something small.

In 2017 after a firestorm ripped through Santa Rosa, rescuers like Officer Shannon Jay devoted months to rescuing the hundreds of cats who had survived a fire hot enough to melt glass and returning them to the families who had lost everything. But a year later, when the monstrous Camp Fire wiped out Paradise, a sanctioned rescue organization tried to stop them.

“Mama Cat” was rescued from underneath the truck, above. It had burned and collapsed after the Camp Fire in Paradise, California. Officer Shannon Jay spent more than an hour jacking up the truck so that he could crawl underneath on broken glass to rescue her.

Paradise after the Camp Fire


The Tubbs Fire came so fast in the middle of the night in Santa Rosa that residents grabbed what they could.