Kittens are plucked to safety from house blaze

A mother and three children fled to safety from their blazing home before two firefighters battled through thick smoke to rescue four tiny kittens.

The firefighters gave oxygen to the kittens – born only three days earlier and whose eyes were still not open – after plucking them to safety from their nest in a bedroom drawer at the house in Skidmore Road, Coseley.

Tammy Ford was alerted by a smoke detector at her home and found smoke pouring from a television in a bedroom.

She ran downstairs and urged her older daughter, Christianne, aged 13, to lead younger daughter Charlie-Grace, aged four, and son Chesney, 23 months, out of the house.

Miss Ford, aged 33, went back to the bedroom, normally occupied by her two daughters, to find the TV in flames.

When firefighters arrived at the scene yesterday morning just after 8.30am, Miss Ford told them of her fears for the kittens, born to the family's cat, Fizz, who escaped unscathed.

Watch commander Richard Cooper, of Bloxwich Fire Station, said: "We pulled them out and got them safe and then kept them warm. We put an oxygen mask in a box with them so they could get some air as they had breathed in smoke and were drowsy."