Martha’s Story (a story of survival shared by Stephanie Szmyd)

Martha, a cat rescued from the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California now shares a quiet life with her owner, Stephanie Szmyd.
Martha, a cat rescued from the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California now shares a quiet life with her owner, Stephanie Szmyd.

Martha, a mound of grey ash wearing a flea collar, was one of the cats found during the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California. How any of these burned cats survived defies the imagination. The badly injured ones were too weak to cry out. Huddled and alone, they were in the midst of the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history.

Arriving at the UC Davis veterinary hospital on November 13, five days after the fire erupted, Martha had burn injuries so severe that she required treatment over the course of several months. Thanks to the care she received at the hospital, Martha made a remarkable recovery.

The Camp Fire was a grim reminder of what I experienced only a year earlier. In 2017, there was a wildfire near my home that burned ten thousand acres. Fifty racehorses would lose their lives that day. While hiking home and passing the roadblock, I saw others running toward the training center. Grabbing a face mask from a local cameraman, I ran too. Bearing witness to horrendous tragedy, I walked through herds of terrified horses. I stayed until dark, doing whatever I could do to help and yet feeling the same overwhelming sense of helplessness as everyone else did.

A year later, I was having lunch with a girlfriend in Sausalito. Driving back to Berkeley where I live now, I couldn’t see the Richmond Bridge through the haze. But immediately I knew exactly why. The only question was where and how bad. I soon learned that it was because of the Camp Fire.

I’ll never know what possessed me to check in with FieldHaven Feline Center, a shelter I had worked with during the Camp Fire recovery effort. Posted at the center was a photo of Martha with the caption, “The last of the badly burned cats from UC Davis.” She had not found a forever home yet, despite a large following of her initial story on Facebook. All those horses and deaths I witnessed came flooding back to me. It was then that I knew Martha was one of us, a survivor. I made up my mind that moment she was coming home with me.

Now Martha and I share a quiet life. We are two older women enjoying the same wing back chair, as I drink coffee in the morning and a glass of wine at night. There is an almost a telepathic sense of understanding between us. Our interactions have an unspoken dance of pure love—nothing expected, no goals to attain.

But one morning Martha had a nightmare. Twitching as cats do and crying out, she awoke startled and jumped into my lap. After shaking and frantically licking my hand, she calmed herself.

I’ve never been a fan of phoenixes or silver linings. It seems so disrespectful to me. Survivors—animal or human—are more nuanced and complicated. We share a sense of dignity. We fight to live, face daunting odds and earn accolades worthy of our experiences.

A small black cat with a flea collar, Martha is my life.

To help rescue animals like Martha during an emergency, please consider donating to the UC Davis Veterinary Emergency Response Team at https://give.ucdavis.edu/GO/VERT.