The Camp Fire that is burning in the Paradise area in Butte County has now covered 109,000 acres and is 25 percent contained. Volunteers at the North Valley Animal Disaster Group have been assisting Cal Fire by performing rescue operations for animals.
At the North Valley Animal Disaster Group in Chico, local volunteers like Kate Leyden work around the clock to save as many animals as they can during disasters like the current Camp Fire burning in Butte County.
“What we do is we do emergency sheltering of animals during disasters and when it is safe to do so we are trained and approved by Butte County to go behind fire lines and evacuate animals and shelter and place.” Leyden said.
The group has remained busy. Leyden says the group has received at least 5,200 phone calls since the fire started. Despite the overwhelming amount of calls the North Valley Animal Disaster Group is still working behind the fire lines to rescue as many animals as they can.
“The good news is that we are behind the fire lines right now evacuating and sheltering, dealing with these requests for services where it’s safe.” she said.
Once the rescue operations cease, the second part of the process will be returning animals to their rightful owners.
“The next part will be matching people with their animals. That won’t start until we get through this initial rescue part.” she said.
Leyden says any large animals that are in need of shelter should be taken to the Yuba-Sutter Fairgrounds and small animals should be taken to the Chico Municipal Airport.
She says that if your animals are in need of rescue, please to call the North Valley Animal Disaster Group at 530-895-0000.
For North State Public Radio News, I’m Andrew Baumgartner.