It’s not your typical warm and fuzzy story.
Flames tore through a Voorhies Avenue building early on May 2, injuring five, but two pet cats escaped through a window, and now frazzled family members are working their tails off to find the flame-proof felines, one said.
“They escaped the fire, and they are nowhere to be found,” said 20-year-old Diana Bobokalonova, whose family has been living in a hotel since the inferno ripped through their home near Dooley Street early Monday. “But I’m just glad that they escaped.”
Bobokalonova shared photos of her two cats — Kuzya and Markis — on social media in the hopes that someone will spot them and bring them home, she said. But one is so darn cute that Bobokalonova, who is in Florida for college, fears someone may take it in as their own.
“I’m really afraid that the white one [Markis] will be taken away by someone else, because he’s very cuddly,” she said. “Nobody would want to let him go.”
Firefighters responded to the three-story building near at 1:28 am on Monday, and by 2 am, 33 emergency vehicles and 138 of New York’s Bravest were battling the blaze, a fire department spokesman said.
Investigators are still determining the cause, but officials believe the inferno broke out in the building’s first-floor commercial space and spread to upstairs apartments.
Emergency responders took five people to Coney Island Hospital — one adult, one child, and two firefighters with minor injuries and a third smoke-eater with serious but non-life-threatening injuries, fire officials said.
Bobokalonova is asking anyone with information to call her at (917) 592–2825.
