On Sept. 5, the Valley Fire swept quickly southeast of Alpine in Carveacre, Lawson Valley, scorching 17,665 acres.
Now, 90 percent contained, the Cleveland National Forest Type 3 Team is managing the fire, which leveled at least 30 homes, dozens of auxiliary building and forced quick widespread evacuations. Many of these evacuations included family pets, horses and farm animals.
The San Diego County Department of Animal Services in Bonita, which serves the unincorporated areas of San Diego County, was quick to respond to the immediate evacuation needs of people with animals fleeing the fire zone.
County of San Diego Director of Animal Services Kelly Campbell said the fast-moving fire had Animal Services going from initial alerts to evacuations overnight.
“We’ve been preparing, and we prepare year over year for emergencies and disasters like this,” she said. “We knew fire season was upon us so we had a plan worked out where we would stage and receive animals in the event of evacuations.
That planning came in really handy because when the time comes to make the move, we encourage and try to prepare people to put together a disaster plan for themselves, their households and their pets and we continue to do that. But sometimes things happen really quickly and there is a lot of scramble.”
Campbell said Animal Services was able and happy to take in companion animals, like cats and dogs, as well as large animals that were part of the evacuations. At the facility in Bonita, Animal Services took in nearly 330 animals, many of those large animals.
“We had many horses, around 25 alpacas, along with livestock like chickens, goats, pigs and other farm animals,” she said.
“That actually quickly exceeded capacity for our Bonita shelter in terms of large animal care.”
Campbell said staff, along with emergency response volunteers provided care, including its veterinarian team which closely monitors all of the activities that take place. The team monitored all animals coming in for injuries or animals that needed additional care or treatment.
Campbell said once capacity was reached with large animals at the Bonita shelter, they started taking them in at Iron Oak Canyon Ranch in Spring Valley. Because they did not know how quickly the fire was going to spread or if it was going to be able to be contained, they opened another large animal receiving site at the Lakeside Rodeo grounds.
“We are lucky that we have many partners in the community,” said Campbell. “We have a great relationship with the San Diego Humane Society, and I have a tremendous appreciation for all of their work and volunteer activities. They run a well-oiled machine in this community and these situations as well.”
Campbell said County Animal Services was the lead agency in this response, but it was lucky to have shared resources and shared operations. Then when evacuations were lifted on Sept. 9, people quickly came back to retrieve their animals. Campbell said it was a challenge because people want to stay with their animals.
“Now where we are with essentially two emergency situations, the pre-existing COVID-19 emergency where our emergency services were already activated and then the fire on top of that made it very challenging for groups of people to be in any one place,” she said. “We have had all of these precautions to observe but the people who were not able to stay with their animals the entire time they were in care were eager to come pick them up.”
Campbell said everyone was happy those reunions were able to take place quickly.”
Campbell said Animal Services is also providing free spay/neuter services, microchipping, as well as rabies vaccinations and licensing for anybody who brought their companion dogs, cats or rabbits in.
“If they needed any of these services, we were providing them because the last thing I want to see is people already affected by an emergency not to have access to the services their pets need,” she said. “It has been a trying experience, but the community really showed up for people and for pets. I am proud to be part of this agency and this community.”
