Alfie the cat is safely back home after firefighters freed him from a six-inch gap between two garages in Stoke-on-Trent.
Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service says crews from Longton Community Fire Station were called to Trentham shortly after 3.10pm on Sunday 20 September. Alfie’s owner had heard him meowing from the narrow space and called for help.
The gap was about fifteen centimetres wide, which is ample room for a cat to enter and apparently not enough room for the return journey. Firefighters removed brickwork to reach him.
The service reported on 24 September that Alfie had been freed and returned home. He had no visible signs of injury after the rescue.
Alfie is himself a former rescue cat, so this was not his first successful extraction from a difficult situation. It was, one suspects, the first that required part of a garage to be dismantled.
Source: Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service’s account of Alfie’s rescue, published 24 September 2026; checked 30 September 2026. The incident took place on 20 September 2026.