Woman who lost home is reunited with her cat 32 days after the Eaton Fire

A cat who was lost while evacuating the California wildfires has been reunited with her owner thanks to the work of two local cat rescuers and a call from a neighbor.

The two local trappers say they immediately went into action after the Eaton Fire, wanting to put their skills to good use and save all the cats they could. And that work continues as they continue going to homes day and night and planning more reunions.  

“I found her when she was four weeks old,” Ria Cousineau, owner of Bergie the cat, said. But on the night of the fires, Bergie tested her own resilience. 

“She snuck out and I spent probably 15 minutes looking all over the house,” Cousineau said. “I don't know where she went to hide and it was getting closer and closer. And so I finally just had to leave. And so I left the dog door open, hoping that she'd find a way at least out of the house.”

Cousineau’s house was destroyed.  But she says a couple of days later there was word of a similar looking cat at the Humane Society and she had hope. 

She was hoping that was her cat, but it wasn't. 

Weeks later, she received a text from her neighbor with a post of a missing cat that had been found.  

“I have two cats and they're chipped. I get emails every couple days, missing cat, and they give me the cross section of where they think it went missing,” Steve Schklair, who helped reunite Bergie with her owner, said. 

“And then this random stray email shows up that says we found this cat and it looked like her, so I sent her the picture and she got so excited and it's her cat,” Schklair said. 

Amy Dresser and Lexi Van Der Hoeven who volunteer with the group “Sante D’or” made the work of finding missing cats after the fire their personal mission, receiving donations from cat food to cameras. 

“A good friend of ours, Jen Night with Del Gato Rescue, hooked us up with another rescue who's out in the Palisades and they just basically overnighted us 13 cameras,” Van Der Hoeven said. 

Cameras captured Bergie coming for food in the middle of the night on multiple occasions, all the while Amy and Lexi were tracking. 

“The first night I just kept holding her and and cradling her and she just wanted to be comforted and I was like you have to be someone's baby,” Dresser said. 

On the eve of Valentine’s Day, Bergie and her owner were reunited, 32 days after the fire.