ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Wednesday, January 3, 1996             TAG: 9601030057
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: C-1  EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER 

'STRIPEY' SAVED BY A WHISKER

A ROANOKE FIREFIGHTER saved one, much-loved kitten from a house fire, which was caused by a malfunctioning oil stove.

Soot coating his face and beard, John St. Clair watched as firefighters entered his dark, smoking house.

Three dogs and two cats had already made it out of St. Clair's two-story frame house at the corner of Redwood Avenue and Catawba Southeast shortly after an oil-stove fire started Tuesday. But a puppy and three more cats were still inside.

The fire had been burning for almost an hour, when Roanoke firefighter Chris Brown burst out of the house with a small gray-and-white striped kitten, soaking wet and clinging to his shoulder.

He handed the kitten to St. Clair, who gripped it tight to his chest. "Stripey!" St. Clair exclaimed. "You're OK!"

Three-month-old Stripey had been hiding in a crawl space under the kitchen stairs. "I was down on the ground, and he jumped on my arm. I couldn't get him off at first, he was holding on so tight," Brown, the firefighter, said.

St. Clair's other two cats were later found dead in the fire. The puppy was still missing Tuesday afternoon. "I had just gotten those cats a few months ago," he said. "I always try to save them from the pound whenever I can."

St. Clair, a meatpacker at Valleydale Foods in Salem, said he was watching television about 2 p.m. Tuesday when oil began pouring out from under his stove. The fire started seconds later.

"I came out the front door," he said. "Me and a neighbor tried to go back in to get the [animals], but then something exploded, and the explosion just about knocked me down the steps."

Roanoke District Fire Chief Phillip A. Taylor confirmed that the fire, which gutted the house, was caused by the malfunctioning stove.

LENGTH: Short :   44 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS/Staff. John St. Clair gives soggy 
          Stripey a hug. Two other cats did not escape the fire, and a puppy 
          was still missing Tuesday. color.