Scarlett (June or July 1995 – October 11, 2008) was a former stray cat from Brooklyn, New York, whose efforts to save her kittens from a fire attracted worldwide media attention, and has been described in several non-fiction books. If the kittens were her first litter, Scarlett was probably about nine months old.
On March 30, 1996, Scarlett and her five kittens were in an abandoned garage allegedly used as a crack house in Brooklyn when a fire started from undetermined causes. The New York City Fire Department responded to a call about the fire and quickly extinguished it. When the fire was under control, one of the firefighters on the scene, David Giannelli, noticed Scarlett carrying her kittens away from the garage one by one.
Scarlett had been seriously injured while attempting to save her kittens from the fire. Her eyes were blistered shut, her ears and paws were scorched, and her coat was charred to a crisp. Her facial hair had been burned away for the most part. After saving the kittens, she was shown touching each of them with her nose to make sure they were all there, as her eyes were blistered and she couldn’t see.
Scarlett and her kittens were treated at the North Shore Animal League in Port Washington, New York, where Gianelli took the whole family. A month after the fire, the weakest of the kittens, a white-coated, died of a virus. Scarlett and her surviving kittens were well enough to be adopted after three months of treatment and rehabilitation.
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