More than half of homes in the United States have at least two pets. 92% of pet owners consider their pets to be part of their family. Pet owners spend $70 billion a year on their pets. In the U.S. a fire department responds to a fire every 23 secs. 500k pets are affected by fires & sadly, 40k pets die in fires annually. Fire departments need to take citizens with pets into consideration when planning for and responding to residential fires and disasters in their communities.