His fur may be singed, his ears barley there, and his paws so burnt he can't even walk. But, Pele the cat is actually very lucky.

“I knew that if he wasn't taken and treated he would have been euthanized,” said Kerry Azevedo.

Azevedo met Pele while caring for animals affected by the Northern California wildfires. As the director of the San Joaquin Valley College veterinary assistant program, she knew his best chance at life was with her.

“The burns are not over his entire body, so I was pretty confident that with medical care that we can provide with the school, that he would be able to fully recover,” Azevedo said.

As part of his recovery, Pele is undergoing a week-long series of sessions in a state-of the art hyperbaric chamber at Fresno's Veterinary Specialty Center.

Melissa Freer, a registered veterinary technician at VSC, is administering Pele’s treatments.

“They told me he'd been in a fire and I was just shocked that he'd made it out in as good of condition as he did,” Freer said.

The chamber delivers oxygen at one hundred percent concentration, so Pele's tissues get more of the life providing element, which speeds up the healing process.

When you get a little closer, you can see the feeding tube in Pele's neck, put there because he's still not up to eating on his own. ”Not well, not eating enough,” Azevedo said.

As Pele recovers he's also helping others. Students in Azevedo's class are learning how to care for animals with burn injures by nursing him back to health.

Azevedo said, “They're very happy to be a part of it and they want to help volunteer with disasters and now I keep hearing ‘what can I do to help?’ …He's doing a lot of good for a lot of different things.”

If you’d like to donate money for Pele’s recovery you can send or drop by donations to San Joaquin Valley College.

Fresno Campus
295 E. Sierra Ave.
Fresno, CA 93710
(559) 448-8282