What to Do After a House Fire With Pets

For most people the animals are the first thought and the hardest part. The house is a problem for tomorrow. The dog is a problem for right now.

This page covers the veterinary urgency, what to do about a pet that is still missing, and the shelter problem that hits at about ten at night.

It is written for the first 48 hours. The general sequence for the property side sits on its own page and can wait until morning.

One thing before anything else. Do not go back inside. No pet is worth a second casualty, and firefighters are equipped to do this and you are not.

What do you do first after a house fire with pets?

In this order. The first four all happen in the first hour.

1. Get every animal you have into a carrier, a crate or a leash immediately, because frightened pets bolt from open ground.
2. Move them upwind and away from the smoke plume, not just away from the building.
3. Tell the incident commander about any missing animal, including species, name, and exactly where it usually hides.
4. Take every animal to a veterinarian today, including any that were only in the house briefly.
5. Call your regular vet on the way so they know what is arriving, or find the nearest 24 hour emergency clinic.
6. Photograph any burns, singed fur or eye irritation before treatment starts, for the claim and for the record.
7. Sort the sleeping arrangements before it gets late, because pet friendly rooms disappear fast.

Handle even a familiar animal carefully. A dog that has never bitten anyone will bite from pain and fear, and a cat in shock is genuinely dangerous to pick up.

The wider sequence for the property, the claim and the night itself is on what to do first after a house fire.

Why does a pet that looks fine still need a vet?

Because the damage from smoke is internal, delayed, and invisible from the outside. A normal looking animal is not a cleared animal.

Two things are happening. Carbon monoxide is binding to the blood, and hot particulate smoke is irritating and swelling the airway lining.

Airway swelling peaks hours after the exposure, not during it. A cat that walked out on its own can be in respiratory distress by midnight.

Carbon monoxide is the bigger killer. Most fire related pet deaths are organ damage from carbon monoxide rather than burns.

A vet will run pulse oximetry, listen to the chest, take bloods and usually chest radiographs, then repeat those images over the first 72 hours to track lung injury.

Oxygen therapy in the first hours is the single most effective intervention, and it is cheap compared with treating the pneumonia that can follow.

What are the smoke inhalation signs in dogs and cats?

Some are obvious and some are easy to read as ordinary fright. Learn the second group.

• Breathing changes: a fast rate, open mouth breathing in a cat, coughing, or noisy breathing that was not there before.
• Gum colour: bright cherry red gums point to carbon monoxide, pale or blue gums point to oxygen shortage. Both mean go now.
• Neurological signs: stumbling, disorientation, weakness, walking as if drunk, or a seizure.
• Face and eyes: squinting, watering eyes, facial swelling, or singed whiskers and nose hair.
• Behaviour: unusual lethargy, or agitation and restlessness that does not settle after an hour.
• Burns: often on the paw pads, the belly and the muzzle, and often hidden under fur.

Singed whiskers are a specific tell. They mean the animal's face was in hot air, which means the airway was too.

Birds are a separate category. They have far more sensitive respiratory systems than mammals and can be fatally affected by smoke that barely troubles a dog.

What if a pet is still missing in the house?

You tell the crew and you stay outside. That is the whole answer, and it is the hardest instruction on this site to follow.

Give them specifics, because specifics are what work. Species, name, colour, and the three places that animal hides when it is frightened.

Under the bed, behind the sofa, on top of a wardrobe, in the airing cupboard, in the basement. Firefighters search those places, and they carry pet oxygen masks on many engines.

Once the fire is out, most missing cats turn out to be still on the property rather than gone. Cats hide and freeze rather than run and keep running.

• Search at dusk and dawn when it is quiet, and search low: crawl spaces, under decking, sheds, and under vehicles.
• Put out a litter tray, bedding and food near the property, since the smell of home carries a long way for a cat.
• Notify the microchip registry, local vets and shelters with your temporary phone number and address.
• Post locally rather than widely. Most found pets are found within a few hundred metres of home.

Do not re enter to search, even after the fire is out, until the structure has been cleared. That decision is covered in whether it is safe to be in the house after a fire.

Where do you stay after a house fire with pets?

This is the problem that arrives at about ten in the evening, and it is worth starting on before you need to.

Emergency shelters and Red Cross facilities generally cannot take animals other than service animals, for health reasons rather than unkindness.

That leaves four realistic options, and the first two are the ones that work.

• A pet friendly hotel booked tonight, since your policy's additional living expenses cover usually reimburses this.
• Friends or family who can take the animals even if they cannot take you, which is a perfectly good split.
• Emergency boarding at a veterinary practice, which many will arrange after a fire and which some do at reduced cost.
• Local animal shelter emergency fostering, which exists in most areas and is designed for exactly this.

Ask your insurer about additional living expenses on the first call and ask specifically whether pet boarding is reimbursable. Many policies cover it and few adjusters mention it.

Keep every receipt from hour one, including the vet bill, the carrier you had to buy, and the pet deposit at the hotel.

If there is nowhere obvious tonight, how to get a roof over your head tonight works through the options in order.

Does insurance pay anything for the animals?

Partly, and the answer is uncomfortable. Homeowners policies treat pets as property, and most exclude them from personal property coverage.

So the animal itself is usually not covered as a loss. What often is covered sits around the edges.

• Boarding costs while the house is uninhabitable, under additional living expenses on many policies.
• Pet deposits and pet fees at temporary accommodation, for the same reason.
• Destroyed pet property: crates, tanks, cages, beds and equipment, which are ordinary contents.
• Veterinary bills sometimes, though this varies a great deal and is worth asking about explicitly rather than assuming.

Separate pet insurance is the more likely route for the veterinary side. Check whether your policy covers accident and emergency treatment and call them the same day.

For the contents side of the claim generally, insurance for personal belongings destroyed in a fire explains how the inventory works.

Is the soot in the house worse for a pet than for you?

Yes, for three concrete reasons, and this is why animals go back in last rather than first.

They are closer to the floor, where settled soot and heavier residues concentrate. Your breathing zone is five feet up. A cat's is six inches.

They groom, which turns a surface contamination problem into an ingestion problem. A cat that walks across a sooty floor eats what it picked up within the hour.

They have smaller lungs and faster respiratory rates, so the same air concentration delivers a proportionally larger dose.

Birds are the extreme case again, and a bird should not be in a house with any smoke residue or with any cleaning chemicals in use.

What the residue actually contains is set out in whether soot is dangerous to your health, and the same chemistry applies to animals at a heavier dose.

When can pets go back into the house?

After the people, not with them. The last stage of the clean, not the first day back.

The practical test is four things being true, and the fourth is the one people rush.

1. Structure and power signed off, so the building is safe and the wiring has been checked.
2. Soot removed rather than settled, particularly at floor level, in corners and along skirting boards.
3. Floors properly cleaned, which for animals matters more than walls do, and carpets extracted or replaced.
4. Cleaning chemicals fully gone, with the house ventilated for a day after the last product was used.

That last one catches people. Many restoration products and odor treatments are safe once dry and cured but not safe while they are in use.

Ask specifically whether any ozone treatment was used and how long ago. Ozone generators require an empty house and a clearance period afterwards.

Keep birds out longest of all. If you have any doubt on timing, ask your vet rather than the restoration crew, because they are answering different questions.

What about birds, reptiles and small animals?

They need their own plan, because the standard advice is written for dogs and cats and does not transfer.

• Birds: the most vulnerable animal in any house fire, and any bird exposed to smoke needs avian veterinary care immediately.
• Reptiles: the heat source is the emergency. A snake or lizard without its heat lamp for a night is a real problem.
• Small mammals: rabbits, guinea pigs and rodents have delicate airways and hide illness well, so assume rather than wait.
• Fish: usually the hardest to move and often lost. If the tank survived, the filter and heater need power restored quickly.

Anything in a cage or tank has been sitting in the smoke without any ability to move away from it. That is worth saying to the vet explicitly.

Finally, the small preventive thing worth doing once this is over. A pet alert sticker by the front door, listing species and number, costs nothing and tells a crew what to look for.

Keep reading

EmergencyWhat to Do First After a House Fire, Step by StepEmergencyWhat to Do the Night of a House FireEmergencyNowhere to Go After a Fire? How to Get a Roof TonightAssessmentIs It Safe to Live in Your House After a Fire?HealthIs Soot Dangerous? What Fire Residue Does to Your HealthInsuranceDoes Insurance Cover Personal Belongings Destroyed in a Fire?