A pet cat quite fittingly named Toast survived a devastating fire that recently gutted an apartment complex in Utah by hiding in a closet – and then safely endured a days-long wait before being rescued, according to officials.

Beside prompting comments across the news and social media landscapes about cats having nine lives, Toast’s death-defying story provided a slight measure of glad tidings surrounding a blaze that ultimately displaced hundreds of residents.

Toast was living in one of the 220 occupied units at the North Union Apartments in the Salt Lake City suburb of Midvale when the five-level facility caught fire at about 8am on Friday. The four-alarm blaze, which was probably caused by a mechanical issue, tore through and destroyed the complex. It took more than 60 hours for firefighters to extinguish, local news outlets KUTV and the Salt Lake Tribune reported.

Though many pets were evacuated alongside the residents of all of the complex’s units, one animal who was not immediately accounted for was Toast. His human owners, therefore, “feared they had lost him”, said a social media post from Salt Lake county animal services, which was working with pets affected by Friday’s fire.

And “as the days passed without any sign of him”, the agency’s post continued, “hope became harder to hold on to”.

The cat, however, held on, Salt Lake’s unified fire authority said in a Monday-night statement on Facebook. The authority recounted how firefighters had found Toast “(yes, that’s really its name!) alive inside the North Union Apartments more than 72 hours after the fire began”, despite having been surrounded by a number of potentially lethal perils.

“Hidden inside a closet – one of the only places left standing in the apartment after the roof collapsed – the resilient cat survived days of smoke, hundreds of thousands of gallons of water being sprayed overhead [by firefighters], and the destruction all around,” the authority’s statement added.

Toast soon was “safely reunited with a very grateful owner”, the statement said. “And aside from being wet, cold and a little scared, [he] was otherwise healthy.”

A Facebook user named Ryder Mathis replied to the fire authority’s statement with a comment reading: “Thank you so much for all your help. I’m so blown away that he was found and safe!”

In a separate reply to the authority’s statement, a Facebook user named Madison Stott said: “Ryder and I are immensely grateful for your team. We were absolutely devastated and it still feels like a dream! Could not thank you enough.”

Salt Lake county animal services on Monday posted a video of Toast’s reunion with his owner, noting the moment took place about an hour after firefighters had found him. On the clip, Toast can be heard meowing in a cat carrier as Mathis peers in, sniffles joyfully and asks, “Can I take him?”

“Please, go,” a voice answers. “Go ahead and grab him.”

The agency said the scene was a reminder of “why we never stop searching”.

“To Toast … welcome home,” the agency also said. “Your family never stopped hoping for this moment.”

It was not immediately clear when the North Union Apartments’ residents would be able to return, the news station KSL reported on Monday. More than 40 families had temporarily moved into Airbnb homes because of a partnership between the short-term rental company and the United Way of Salt Lake charitable non-profit – but many displaced tenants were still grappling with uncertainty, according to the outlet.