LOS ANGELES — Arianna Buturovic keeps a close eye on the smoke coming from the shelter outside of Los Angeles she ran to save dogs that were about to be put down. In just a few hours, the nearby mountains caught fire, and flames started to surround her.
Sourovic said, “I put 15 dogs and two cats in a black Prius.”
To get nine more dogs and a pig to safety, she called out to some 18-year-olds in a truck, who agreed to take them to a refuge. She couldn’t bring two ponies with her, but she left the fence open in case they needed to get away.
“That’s how we got almost 30 animals out of there,” she said. “That was crazy.”
It was a rush for many animal owners in Los Angeles to get their pets and themselves out of the way of the fast-moving flames that killed 11 people this week and destroyed more than 12,000 homes and other buildings. Shelters are overflowing, and leaders have asked people to find friends or family to take in their pets if they can.
Wendy Winter and her husband decided Tuesday night that they should get some cat carriers so that they can leave their Altadena home with Purry Mason and Jerry, their cats. After less than two hours, it was clear they had to go. The next morning, they found out that their street and the house they had lived in for more than seven years had been torn down.
She said, “You don’t even know there’s fear and loss.” “You’re shocked.”
They want to find friends who can take care of their cats for two months while they decide what to do next. The woman named Winter said that she and her husband are lost and don’t know if they can make their cats feel safe and at ease right now.
Some people who couldn’t leave with their pets took them to shelters.
250 pets were taken in by the Pasadena Humane Society on the first day after the fires began. A representative for the Los Angeles County Animal Care said that they were taking care of 97 pets, mostly cats and dogs but also pigs, a turtle, a bird, and a snake.
The old Animal Wellness Centers office in Marina del Rey was being moved out of by veterinarian Dr. Annie Harvilicz. But when her brother needed a place for his pets to stay, she turned the exam, X-ray, and surgery rooms into a makeshift shelter. In no time, she took in 41 dogs, cats, and a rabbit. All but two of them quickly found foster homes.
On Facebook, she told people to get in touch with her if they needed a place for their pets. She was ready for a flood of pets in need of a safe place to stay, but instead, she has been flooded with people willing to help.
She said, “I’m very proud of the people of Los Angeles because I really feel like they’ve stepped up to help each other.”
Harvilicz was asked to take some people’s horses, but she couldn’t get a trailer to them in time for them to leave. She said that bigger animals are more likely to get hurt by flames because they are harder to move.
A Facebook group called Southern California Equine Emergency Evacuation is run by Julia Bagan. One day after the fire, she found five horses locked in their stalls in Altadena. The horses were in a small outside pen connected to the barns, but they still couldn’t get away from the fire completely.
A neighbor called for help, and firemen used bolt cutters to free the horses. Bagan said that one of the horses was badly hurt by that time.
She drove through the fire’s remains Wednesday night to get to them while sparks flew from the broken power lines above. “The most crazy and dangerous” escape she’s ever been through, she said. As she pulled up, almost every house in the area was on fire.
The 3-year-old black mare that was hurt had leg burns, so she named her Flicka after the movie. Her halter, tail, and hair all caught fire. The flames burned her eyes badly.
A vet at an emergency equine hospital said the horse had a 50/50 chance of living.
“She had no chance at all with her owners leaving her locked in a stall and leaving them all there,” Bagan said.
But some people who own horses were ready.
Meredith McKenzie asked people at her barn to help her get her horse out of the barn when she got word a few days before that there was a higher risk of fire. This way, she could focus on taking care of her Alzheimer’s friend.
“Horse people know when there’s fire coming. McKenzie said, “We’re away before it starts because the horses go crazy when there’s smoke.” “They just want to run, so it’s hard to keep them in line.”
The old Bob Williams Ranch on Cheney Trail, where she kept her horses, burned down, she said. Someone at another station said they would give McKenzie a saddle and bridle even though she lost hers.
It was Tuesday when Suzanne Cassel and her two horses, a donkey named Oscar Nelson, four dogs, and two cats left Topanga. They moved quickly to get a spot at Pierce College’s big emergency shelter for animals in Woodlands Hills.
The horses are in the shelter with her, and the dogs and cats are in the horse trailer. On the other hand, her donkey was sad in a cage by himself.
She said, “He was lonely, so I went inside and sat in the stall with him for 30 minutes. He liked it because, as a herd animal, no one likes to be alone.”
Buturovic, who runs the dog shelter, took some of her dogs to Harvilicz’s old hospital and others to the home of a friend in Venice.
The Topanga ranch was on fire when she got back there Wednesday morning. The cement building had been through two or three fires since the 1950s. It was covered in soot, had no roof, and had windows that had been blown out. Her horse and two dogs that she fed that were kind of wild went missing. She wants to raise money for Philozoia, her non-profit group that saves animals from homes that kill a lot of them.
She said, “I don’t know where we’re going from here.”
Leave a Comment