12:00a.m. 2nd September 2008

| By Alan Lander

A Nambour Fire and Rescue officer with Muffin the cat. Photo: contributed

Muffin officially has eight lives left.

The four-year-old cat had her closest shave on the weekend, after what was believed to be a firework sent her scuttling for refuge at her Woombye home, but the cavalry in this story turned out to be the Nambour Fire Brigade.

Muffin’s “parents” Ron and Helen Corelli said Muffin did not turn up for her morning meal on Sunday.

“We carried out an extensive search around our home,” Ron said.

“She is usually a stay-at-home cat, but we remember some fireworks going off on Saturday night and thought she may have been scared off.”

Later that morning, Helen heard a “sorrowful meowing” as she entered the garage, coming from under the wooden floor.

“She crawled under the floor, and could barely see Muffin jammed in behind the cement block retaining wall and the floor and tried without success to get her out.”

The Corellis rang the RSPCA, which could not help as it had no Coast office, but recommended the local firies, a call to which resulted in their arrival 15 minutes later.

Nambour Fire Station officer Chris Cahill said the job proved difficult for the four crew.

“She was trapped between a Besser block wall and a slab,” he said.

“We had to cut and unscrew floorboards, and even when we located the cat we had to do more cutting.

“She was wedged in a tiny space.”

The job took one-and-a-half hours, he said.

And it involved a lot of baby oil to help ease Muffin through the smallest of crevices safely, but the job was done, with no feline damage other than a little pride.

“My wife and I are so grateful to the firies,” Ron said.

“They were so gentle and considerate with just a small bundle of an animal jammed into a confined area for about 20 hours.

“Thank you gentlemen, from our hearts.”