Man’s best friend is not always man’s first thought when fire strikes a home, so a Hyattsville couple has come up with a way to get oxygen to pets that suffer smoke inhalation.

‘‘Everybody knows that firemen go out and put out fires ... and pull people out, but I don’t think you’re going to find anybody who has a pet that they don’t consider a fully fledged member of the family. [But] sometimes pets can get lost in the mix,” Horlick said.

Each pet oxygen kit has three masks, plastic tubing and instructions for the firemen. There are detailed instructions included in each box, as well as directions to the two closest 24-hour animal hospitals, he said.

‘‘Most times, if a fireman or a paramedic is in tune to the idea of helping an animal anyway, they might not have the means or might not know exactly what to do,” Horlick said. ‘‘We wanted to make sure that the firemen were as educated as they could be about how to use the masks.”

The masks are manufactured by a New Zealand-based company and come in large, small and feline sizes. They are mainly used for cats and dogs, but the feline-size masks would also work for a ferret or a rabbit, Horlick said.

Here’s how it works: A fireman puts the animal’s nose through a rubber gasket into a plastic cone. Tubing in the cone is then connected from the tip of the mask to an oxygen tank. There is a valve on each side of the cone to let excess oxygen out or to let more in. A fitting for the tube is removable for use with an ambulatory bag.

If a pet is exposed to intense smoke, it would need about 5 liters of oxygen per minute, said Raymond Raftovich, a veterinary technician at the Hyattsville Animal Hospital in Brentwood.

A firefighter would have to continue giving the animal oxygen until its heart rate and coloring returned to normal, he said.

Gerell Lockett, a volunteer fireman at the Bladensburg Volunteer Fire Department, said he has not had to give an animal oxygen during a fire, but his company makes every effort to help an injured beast.

‘‘It depends on the situation, how long the animal’s been in there,” he said of what aid a pet would need if exposed to smoke.

‘‘We’re not trained to give resuscitation to an animal. Our main concern is human.”

Lockett’s department occasionally encounters the need to pull a pet out of the flames.

‘‘Recently there was a small kitchen fire where we had to go in and look for a cat that was supposedly in there but the cat got out of the house [on its own],” he said.

There is the occasional incident when a pet cannot be rescued from a fire or is too afraid to be pulled out, St. Rain said.

‘‘Oftentimes cats hide under furniture,” she said. ‘‘I know someone who tried to find cats in a fire, but the animals were scared and hid under the sofa.”

The pets survived but had to undergo extensive therapy during recovery, she said, adding the immediacy of the oxygen masks is paramount.

In any case, pets should be given oxygen immediately, just as humans, Raftovich said.

‘‘It depends on how much smoke [it inhaled],” he said. ‘‘If they just run through, it’s not a problem. The only difference is animals are treated as [humans are] in pediatrics.”

However, if the pet just will not cooperate, or rescue workers have not yet arrived, owners should get animals to a clear area. Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation is only needed if the pet is unconscious, Raftovich said.

The fitted masks are important because a human oxygen mask would not work for a pet, said Raftovich, who previously worked as an emergency technician at Friendship Animal Hospital in Washington, D.C.

‘‘I think [people] are more concerned about their pets than they are about themselves, sometimes,” he said.

It is that love of animals that inspires Horlick and St. Rain to get as many mask kits out as they can.

So far, the Hyattsville Volunteer Fire Company is the only organization in the county to be outfitted with the masks, Horlick said. Fire department representatives from Hyattsville could not be reached for comment. The couple is also taking the idea to fire departments in College Park, Branchville and Riverdale Heights.

Horlick and St. Rain are considering seeking nonprofit status for the project, but right now, it is completely self-funded.

‘‘It’s a modest effort,” Horlick said. ‘‘We feel really good about it. It’s just as much for us as it is for the animals.

‘‘I’d love to have enough people get excited about this that every fire department in the [Metro] area has one of these.”

Each kit costs about $75. Visit www.pet-projects.org.

E-mail Sarah Nemeth at snemeth@gazette.net.