This thesis rated a hug

They rescue people, dogs and cats all the time. Homework? Not so much.

But a London firefighter became a student’s hero this week when he emerged from a burning home with her thesis.

“It was wonderful. He came out with all my hard drives and I just ran over and gave him the biggest hug,” said Stefanie Kloibhofer, a graduate student at Carleton University in Ottawa who was home in London visiting her parents when an electrical fire broke out. “It was a huge sense of relief that I didn’t have to start from scratch.”

Kloibhofer has put her heart and soul into the Canadian studies thesis — which is a photography piece that examines ethnic labelling and the “hyphenated” identities of Canadians — since 2011. It’s due in September.

She has it saved on several hard drives, but ironically brought all of them to London with her to keep them safe.

“I bring them everywhere I go,” she said. “It’s hilarious. You always think your parents’ house is safe. I had thought there could be a fire in my old apartment.”

Kloibhofer was in her old bedroom at her family’s Carey Cres., home when the power went out in the house Thursday afternoon. There was a strange popping sound and then fire started coming out of the wall in her brother’s bedroom, which is right next to hers.

The electrical fire caused the bed in her brother’s room to burst into flames almost immediately. Kloibhofer and her parents took measures to keep it down, called 911 and ran out of the house.

Firefighters arrived and put down the flames but smoke had filled the home by then. When they told Kloibhofer the two family cats were safe, she suddenly recalled her life’s work.

“I was like ‘Oh! My thesis!’ ” she said. “I was thinking, ‘holy cow, how am I going to finish? I only have seven months.”

She was sobbing at the time, said Kirk Loveland, the firefighter who decided to go in and find the hard drives.

“I realized it was her life’s work in there, and there was potential for more damage,” he said.

Deputy Fire Chief Jim Jessop said removing valuable items goes with the job.

“After our primary and secondary search to ensure all occupants are safely removed, our firefighters do whatever they can to remove all valuable property,” Jessop. said

Loveland said the crew he was out with was comparing notes with another crew that was at a fire the same afternoon and helped pull people and a dog out of a burning building across the city.

“We were saying, ‘well we saved a thesis,’ ” he said, laughing. “And I was bragging when I got back to the hall, ‘I got a hug.’ ”

Kloibhofer, who has an undergraduate degree in photography, has some of her work displayed on her website — stefkloibhofer.com.

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