Tucker actually glued me to my seat in October 2017 when the Tubbs Fire destroyed whole neighborhoods in a matter of hours. I was riveted by his story: he was brought into Sonoma County Animal Services by a PG&E worker and he was severely burned. SCAS posted his picture because they needed help finding his family. He had a microchip—but they couldn’t contact his family. In a matter of two hours, hundreds of people shared his photo and found his family. Two hours. It turns out that Tucker had been missing for two years! The community and his microchip brought him home. Tucker was the genesis of The Fire Cats film.

Hobbes was severely burned in the Tubbs Fire in 2017 and rushed to a local vet clinic. The images of him swaddled in bandages—and his miraculous recovery—galvanized the community and gave them hope that their cats could have survived. If you mention Hobbes’s name today in Santa Rosa, everyone will recognize it. His family was never found (he was not microchipped); he was adopted by Lauren, the vet tech who cared for him. Lauren’s home was destroyed by a wildfire in 2021, and so she rushed Hobbes and her dogs to safety—saving Hobbes yet again! 

Thomas escaped during the Tubbs Fire in 2017 and ran straight toward the fire. His family was distraught, particularly young Lea, who had picked him out in a shelter as a toddler and insisted on taking him home—she couldn’t hold onto him and was guilt-ridden. Despite losing their home, they committed to finding Thomas, but gave up when they located the remains of a cat at their property. Weeks later, Shannon Jay rescued a cat a quarter mile from their home and the little cat had a microchip—Thomas!