Calif. Wildfires Put Thousands of Animals in Peril

Oct. 24, 2007 — -- Driving southbound on Interstate 5, it's easy to think you've made abad choice of direction. The beaming sun and it's bright bluebackground disappear at the San Diego County line, replaced by asky of monotone gray and the unmistakable smell of ash. Road signswarn of a county on fire. Rush hour is unusually quiet — except it seems forthe horse trailers.

"You can't fit a horse in the back seat of your car and there's no wayany owner's going to leave them to burn," said Mark Hoekstra, anEscondido native who was told to evacuate his home early Mondaymorning. "We moved 12 horses to Rancho dos Palmas [an equine boardinghouse] yesterday and four so far this morning."

Hoekstra and his wife are one of two-dozen families who have set uphome in a Wal-Mart parking lot 10 miles east of the Witch Creek fire,which covers more than 145,000 acres. Their trailers lay dormant, buthooked up to pickups should another call for help comes their way.

"So many people live in the hills right by trails that they don'tusually need to have their own trailers," Hoekstra said. "There's anetwork of friends with trailers and we help anyone who needs itwhether we know them or not."

With as many as 300,000 horses living in the county, the job oftransporting the horses to safety cannot be left to volunteers alone.

The bustling Carson Park is where the authorities have set up theirvarious command centers. While sleeping firefighters waited for thewinds to relent, there was no rest for the various animal-rescueorganizations housed at the back of the compound.

"We just got down to San Diego County late last night after working inMalibu and it's been nonstop," said Jeff Blodgett, informationofficer for the LA branch of the Society to Prevent Cruelty to Animals, (SPCALA) They run a animal rescue unit called the Disaster Animal Response Team (DART) specially trained to mount large scale animal rescues.

"We generallydeal with household pets, but we've got two trailers so [we] can rescue guyslike these," Blodgett said as he pointed at two horses, one gray, theother chestnut that had been rescued earlier that morning. Theirowner was on vacation and called animal control upon hearing of thefires.