Cat demonstrates new survival skill

WEST ORANGE, N.J., Aug. 14 (UPI) -- New Jersey firefighters thought a house cat’s goose was cooked when it was trapped in a house fire -- but then found the cat alive in the couch.

West Orange, N.J., firefighters said the blaze gutted a house’s basement apartment and first floor. One firefighter was taken to the hospital with heat exhaustion, the Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger reported.

The fire apparently started when an electrical cord overheated. It took about 30 minutes to put out and at that point the first-floor tenant told the firefighters one of her two cats was inside.

His men expected the cat to be dead of smoke inhalation, West Orange Fire Chief Peter Smeraldo told the Star-Ledger.

But the unnamed cat was smart enough to survive. Firefighters found it quite alive, scared but alert and wedged into a couch.

"They should change that cat's name,” Smeraldo told the newspaper, “to lucky."