Firefighter Rescues Injured Bear Cub

Though he was busy putting out fires all over California, Adam Deem stopped for a worthy cause: saving the life of an injured orphan bear cub.

By Kathryn Hawkins. Posted on July 21 2008

Since wildfires started raging around southern California several weeks ago, firefighter Adam Deem hasn’t had a day’s rest. He’s been zooming from one blaze to the next, making every effort to save homes and forest areas before they burn to the ground. But while driving through the Shasta-Trinity National Park last Thursday, he saw something that made him stop his car: a young bear cub, staggering out onto the road.

Deem came closer to the bear, looking for his mother, who should have been right nearby. She was nowhere to be found, and the cub was in bad shape. He’d been burned in the wildfires, and his fur and paws were both scorched. So Deem decided to take the baby bear with him, so that the animal could be treated and rehabilitated at a wildlife center. On his own, he didn’t stand a chance.

“He was fighting, trying to bite and scratch me, and I tried to keep out of his way,” Deem told the Los Angeles Times. “Basically I tucked him under my arm, hiked up the hill, climbed up and called the command center.”

He drove the cub to a base camp, where medics treated the animal for dehydration and his burns while Deem held him. The little bear, who Deem called “Lil’ Smokey,” seemed more comfortable around him now: “He licked my neck a little bit and gave me little kisses,” said Deem.

Now, thanks to Deem’s help, Lil’ Smokey is recuperating at a wildlife center in the Lake Tahoe region, where he’s learning how to be a bear. “He doesn’t have a mommy, so we will have to educate him like we do all our little cubs, teach him what a fish is, teach him about honey, what to do in the wild,” said Cheryl Milham, a founder of the wildlife center.

But once Lil’ Smokey learns the ways of the wild, “I think his prognosis is good,” said Milham. “I think he’ll make it . . . and if it wasn’t for the guy, the fireman taking his time to pick him up, he’d be dead.”

Filed under: Animals and Pets, Heroes,

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