They say every dog has its day. For the Sila family, it was the cat who grabbed a moment of glory.
On Thanksgiving Day, an electrical fire started in the closet of 12-year-old Kyle Sila's second-floor bedroom at 816 State St., Ottawa. His sister, Sammie, 15, and her boyfriend, Jared Wheeler, were in the next room at around 7 p.m. with the family cat, Gezebell.
Gezebell was asleep on the foot of the bed, but then awoke and began scratching at the door. Sammie assumed the cat wanted out, so she opened the door, but instead of going downstairs, the 4-year-old cat went for Kyle's bedroom door. Kyle wasn't in his room.
Sammie and Jared were puzzled about the cat wanting to go to Kyle's room. But after the cat attempted twice to coax them to the room, they decided to let her in and she immediately went to the closet. They opened the door and found out what all the fuss was about.
"We opened up the closet door and a wall of smoke hit us," Sammie said.
She tried to remove the cat from the room, but the feline refused. Sammie, accompanied by Jared, went downstairs to alert her father, Mark.
"I could hear her meowing when I was going downstairs," said Sammie, a sophomore at Ottawa Township High School.
The Ottawa Fire Department arrived and the smoke detector activated shortly after.
"By then, it probably would have been too late," Sammie said.
At that point, everyone in the house moved outside, including the dog and another cat. Gezebell wouldn't leave.
"I was actually scared she was dead," Sammie said. "She wouldn't leave the upstairs."
When the fire was out, Sammie found the pregnant cat safe inside the house.
The house sustained an estimated $15,000 in damage, mostly in Kyle's closet and bedroom. Sammie lost all the electronics in her room and her futon, while her brother lost almost everything in his room -- three dressers, his bed and all his video games.
"Thanks to my cat, (the fire) barely even got a chance to get to my room," she said.
The family had recently moved into the house. Remodeling is scheduled to begin next week. Sammie said her family tries to stay off the second floor since the smell is strong. She said it's given her father respiratory problems.
In the past, Sammie's dad had encouraged her to get rid of the cat, but after the fire he admitted cats aren't useless after all.
"My dad said he was sorry," Sammie said. "He always thought cats were useless animals and he doesn't think that anymore."
The family dog, a Springer spaniel-chow mix, was napping downstairs when the fire began.
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