Firefighters rescue cat from Strathfield drain after heavy rain hits Sydney

Firefighters had to climb down a canal to stop the animal from being swept away after heavy rain hit Sydney.

The deluge of rain caused a change of pace for firefighters who had to rescue a cat from down a drain, rather than up a tree, on Wednesday.

Fire and Rescue crews went to Elva St, Strathfield just before 8am after a group of schoolchildren spotted a kitten stuck down a drain.

Whether stuck in a tree or down a drain, the rescue technique was largely the same with fighters using ladders to climb and stop the animal from being swept away.

Ben McCaskill managed to give the cat a quick cuddle before taking it to the RSPCA.

Fire and Rescue NSW station officer Dean D’Agostino said these types of strange jobs pop up regularly.

“We’ve never had to get a cat out of a tree, or we haven’t yet! But we get called to all sorts of weird things, I’ve been called to rescue bats stuck in trees, possums tangled in branches and even a cat inside a wall,” he said.

“It is a strange feeling – we had to have a bit of a brainstorm and be quite calculated with how we saved it.

“The kitten had run up a pipe and we managed to lasso it out before it jumped in the water so we had to go in after it. It almost escaped again when we put it in the cage but we got it safely to the RSPCA.”

The animal was swept into the drain after overnight rainfall in Sydney.

The deluge was in the eastern suburbs and lower north show with 38mm falling on Rose Bay, 32mm on Mosman.

Observatory Hill in the city’s centre copped 29mm while surrounding suburbs received between 10 and 20mm.

This rescue comes only a few months after fireys saved a cat stuck in a wall at a home in Bankstown.