Firefighters have been called out to rescue thousands of animals such as cats stuck up trees and farm animals trapped in water or mud. In 2020-21 the fire service was called out to save 5,160 animals from a variety of predicaments.
That's a 9% increase on 4,724 the previous year and the highest number since available records began in 2012-13. More than half of those calls were to save pets (52%) while one in five were to rescue distressed farm animals (20%) and almost a quarter were to help wild animals (24%). Even birds needed saving sometimes, with 5% of calls to rescue parrots, budgies, ducks, and other feathered friends.
The most common call received by firefighters nationally was to rescue a trapped animal (1,965 calls), followed by animals stuck somewhere high (1,428) - of which two-thirds (66%) were domestic pets. That suggests the cliche of firefighters being called out to rescue cats from trees is still very much a reality - as Cheshire firefighters demonstrated earlier this year by coming to the rescue of a cat that spent a stormy night clinging to an overhanging branch up a tall tree in Wirral.
