Roodepoort volunteer firefighters protect all forms of life, no matter how small
A group of volunteer firefighters helped put out a fire and in the process saved a tiny field mouse.
The Community Group Firefighter Association (CGFA) team rescued a field mouse during a call-out in Honeydew recently.
According to Natasha Edwards, their spokesperson, the call for help came in around 11:54 on July 20 and the CGFA team was at the scene – a local church – four minutes later.
“We handed the scene over to the City of Joburg’s Emergency Medical Services at 13:20 for overhaul,” she added. She stated that the cause of the fire is unknown, but the fire started in their compost heap.
“The mouse was caught walking out of their compost zone. We could see it was absolutely exhausted. As an entity that values all life, we picked up the mouse and checked it for burns. The mouse was free of burns but exhausted,” elaborated Natasha, “we dropped water onto the mouse’s mouth, so it could digest some. After 10 minutes the mouse became more aware and we decided to release it outside of the property.”
She added that the important thing to take away from this incident is that compost generates a lot of heat. This is a result of the decomposition process.
“When the public decides to make their own compost, it’s important to remember to turn the compost regularly and wet the heap. This is so that the heat can be controlled and the decomposition is encouraged without posing a fire risk,” she concluded.
