A cat awakened residents of a two-story townhome in Gaithersburg early Sunday, alerting them of a fire that had started in the first-floor kitchen, according to authorities.
At approximately 4:20 a.m. Sunday, fire and rescue crews responded to the 600 block of West Side Drive for a report of a house fire, MCFRS spokesperson Pete Piringer wrote on social media.
Piringer said firefighters encountered a kitchen fire on the first floor and three residents trapped on the rear deck of the home. All three were rescued from the deck via ladder, he said. No injuries were reported.
Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service (MCFRS) spokesperson David Pazos wrote on social media Sunday that the cat did not survive the fire.
Pazos said MCFRS crews “did great work to breach a wood fence” in the rear of the house to rescue the residents. One male and two females were rescued, Pazos said.
No cause of the fire was provided by authorities. The residents were displaced from their home.
The MCFRS posts did not say how the cat died. In his post, Pazos said that before the residents moved to the second-floor deck–where they waited to be rescued by fire crews–they had “closed the door,” but did not specify which door.
An X user commenting on Pazos’ posts about the fire called the feline a “hero cat.”
MCFRS officials did not immediately respond to MoCo360’s requests for comment Monday morning.