A sharp-eared person passing a car parked on a Santa Rosa street likely saved a stray kitten this weekend, alerting area firefighters to the little pussy's plight.
According to a Facebook post from the Santa Rosa Fire Department, at around 3 p.m. Saturday, their "Engine 1 was dispatched to a non-emergency call for a report of a kitten stuck in the engine of a car."
The Chron reports that "Someone initially heard meowing sounds around 10:30 a.m. but couldn’t figure out where they were coming from." Eventually it was determined that the cat was inside the car's engine, a not-uncommon occurrence in colder months.
"People at the scene tracked down the car’s owner, who gave the OK to cut up his engine box," the Chron reports — an easy task for firefighters, as "Our fire engines are like giant tool boxes with crews capable of solving whatever problem they arrive at," the SRFD writes.
"Footage from the scene captured two firefighters digging under the car's hood trying to find the feline," NBC Bay Area reports. "As the firefighters pried away, faint meows from the black kitten could be heard." It went something like this:
Kitten Rescue Hendley St at 3pm, E-1 was dispatched to a non-emergency call for a kitten stuck in an engine & was safely removed by our FFs pic.twitter.com/NHkpCXLXpB
— SantaRosaFire (@SantaRosaFire) August 19, 2017
"The kitten was safely removed and happy to be out," the SRFD writes. It appeared to be a stray, the Chron reports, and once it was freed, it was "turned over to someone at the scene."