Arroyo Grande firefighters rescue quail chicks from storm drain

Five Cities Fire Authority firefighters reunited a flighted family in Arroyo Grande on Friday afternoon.

A total of nine quail chicks were retrieved from a storm drain on Avenida de Diamante by firefighters around 2:25 p.m., after a resident heard the chicks crying, Fire Chief Steve Lieberman told The Tribune.

“FCFA is an all-risk fire department,” the department said on Twitter. “Crews just reunited a group of quail babies with their anxious parents in @ArroyoGrandeCA.”

After sending a firefighter down the drain to scoop up the chicks in a bucket, the firefighters reunited the chicks with their parents, who were watching nervously from across the street, Lieberman said.

It’s the latest in a series of animal rescues around San Luis Obispo County.

Earlier this month, an Arroyo Grande resident recovered a baby owl from a friend’s chicken pen with the help of the Pacific Wildlife Center.

In late April, Paso Robles police and fire department officials saved a brood of 13 ducklings who had fallen into a storm drain.

Just a week after the duckling rescue, a young horse was saved from a Nipomo swimming pool after he slipped through the cover of an Airbnb’s pool.

And in January, in the aftermath of the powerful winter storms that flooded the Central Coast, Cal Fire officers helped pull a horse free from a muddy creek.