house fire

Losing your home and belongings in a house fire is devastating enough, but losing a pet that you can't find before you're forced to evacuate is even worse. No one wants to say goodbye to a beloved pet even under normal circumstances, but to lose them in a fire is too tragic to think about.

So, imagine getting a call that your pet you thought had perished along with your home has been found alive.

Katherine Kiefer got that call from Westside Animal Shelter in Los Angeles two months after her home was destroyed in the Palisades fire. The 82-year-old had been at a radiation treatment appointment for lung cancer the morning of January 7, 2025, when the fire reached her neighborhood. Katherine's daughter Carolyn told Upworthy that Aggie had fled as the family gathered belongings and pets to evacuate while fending off the fire with hoses. They searched and searched, but finally they had no choice but to flee without her.

"Telling my mother that we had not found Aggie was devastating," Carolyn says. "We had failed. The next morning we were able to drive into the Palisades and saw we had lost our home. It felt like a warzone and it seemed impossible that Aggie would have been able to survive such a firestorm. The following two months have been very dark for my mother. Losing the home was painful but losing Aggie made it especially heartbreaking. My mother told me that when she was having a hard time with her cancer treatment and felt down she would remind herself, 'at least I have Aggie.' Now, she was gone."

But she wasn't. Aggie was miraculously found among the ash and rubble near their former home in early March and taken to Westside Animal Shelter, where workers scanned her microchip. Carolyn says the family thought the call from the shelter was a scam at first, but once they confirmed the chip number they knew Aggie really had survived. The shelter had sent Aggie to ChatOak Animal Hospital 40 minutes away for treatment, and Katherine got to reunite with her there.

"I have never seen my 82 yr old mother move so fast and be so impatient," says Carolyn.

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"Seeing them reunited was life changing," says Carolyn. "My mother has really struggled and Aggie's survival has brought her back to life. She is completely different since learning about Aggie. She is really a part of our family and we felt broken without her."

Carolyn's video of their reunion got over five million views on TikTok, but people wanted to see the original recording without the music added. In the unedited version, we get to hear the vet tech share how sweet Aggie had been, and we hear Katherine greet Aggie with, "Hi, sweetest girl!"

Sweetest girl indeed. Oof.

Aggie was suffering from starvation, anemia, a fever, and minor burns when she was brought in. She had to have some matted fur removed and received the blood transfusion, and she will receive ongoing care until she is well enough to join her family again. A GoFundMe to help cover Aggie's veterinary bills has raised over $27,000 in just a couple of days, which is surely a relief for a family already dealing with so much loss.

How do you keep pets safe in a house fire?

Everyone wants to think they would just grab their pets and go if a fire threatened their home, but it's not always that simple. Animals have instincts to protect themselves and will often hide if they sense danger, so it can be hard to find them in a fire situation.

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The American Red Cross offers these tips for giving pets the best chance of survival in case of a fire:

- The best way to protect your pets from the effects of a fire is to include them in your family plan. This includes having their own disaster supplies kit as well as arranging in advance for a safe place for them to stay if you need to leave your home.

- When you practice your escape plan, practice taking your pets with you. Train them to come to you when you call.

- In the event of a disaster, if you must evacuate, the most important thing you can do to protect your pets is to evacuate them, too. But remember: never delay escape or endanger yourself or family to rescue a family pet.

- Keep pets near entrances when away from home. Keep collars on pets and leashes at the ready in case firefighters need to rescue your pet. When leaving pets home alone, keep them in areas or rooms near entrances where firefighters can easily find them.

- Affix a pet alert window cling and write down the number of pets inside your house and attach the static cling to a front window. This critical information saves rescuers time when locating your pets. Make sure to keep the number of pets listed on them updated.

However, even the best laid plans don't always go the way we want them to, and sometimes there's nothing we can do but hold out hope that our pets' natural survival instincts will save them like Aggie's did. Her tragedy to triumph story is is a good reminder of how resilient animals can be, even in the most unlikely of circumstances. Here's to a speedy recovery so Aggie can be home with Katherine where she belongs as soon as possible.