When firemen woke her up Thursday morning, Roxi Cunningham quickly searched for her most important possessions. She grabbed her purse, but she couldn’t find her cat Sox.
An hour later, Cunningham (pictured) sat huddled in an emergency blanket on the sidewalk outside her apartment on Emerson Street, crying. Her cat was still nowhere to be found.
Firefighters rushed to the scene and quickly contained what could have been a very damaging basement fire at 49 – 51 Emerson St. in Westville on Thursday morning. Roxi Cunningham, who lives on the third floor of the multi-family building was home asleep at the time of the fire.
The two-alarm fire was called in at 10:37 a.m., said Assistant Fire Chief Ralph Black. Firefighters were on the scene in three minutes and the fire was under control by 11:22 a.m., Black said.
No one was injured in the fire.
Fire Chief Michael Grant said the fire started in the basement. The cause is unknown. Over 34 firefighters responded, Grant said. The whole basement was on fire when the firefighters arrived, but they were able to contain it before it got to the first floor, he said.
It’s a good thing they put it out so quickly, Grant said, because a fire could have spread quickly in the “balloon frame” house. If the fire had gotten to the walls, there would have been a “wide open path for the fire to travel up.”
As they searched the building, firefighters found Cunningham and walked her down the building’s back stairs, Grant said.
“I got woken up by a whole bunch of nice looking young men,” Cunningham said. When they told her she had to leave the building, she grabbed her purse and started looking for Sox. But she couldn’t find the cat anywhere. She had to leave without him.
She described the cat as grey and white, with white diamond on his forehead.
“I need him, he’s all I’ve got here,” Cunningham said. She and Sox have been together for five years, since a time when he could fit in the palm of her hand, she said. “I’m his only hope,” she said.
A traveling psychiatric nurse, Cunningham said she diagnosed Sox with PTSD and took care of him. “He takes care of Mom, too,” she said.
By noon, Sox had still not been located. Cunningham said the cat might still be in the apartment. Chief Black said he had sent firefighters up to look for it, to no avail.
A 26-year-old man who said he lives on the first floor of the house was also out on the sidewalk. Dressed in a t‑shirt, sweatpants, and slip-on Adidas sandals, he was shivering against the cold. He said he called 911 to report the fire when it happened. He declined to comment further.
“It’s just such a shock to me right now,” he said.