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The Snaking Fire was a grim example of the potential for devastation of
wildfire, whether naturally caused or caused by the negligence of man. In
this, the driest year in recent history, any fire has the potential to cause
massive damage to the environment as well has destroy homes and take lives.
This time, we were fortunate that due to the efforts of fire-fighters and
moderation of weather conditions. No lives were lost and no homes were
destroyed. This experience, however, further emphasizes the need for
individual, neighborhood and community emergency plans to ensure the rapid
evacuation of people, pets and livestock when necessary.
PET EVACUATIONS
The Snaking fire started near Shawnee mid-day on April 23. What started as a small, negligence caused grass and brush fire rapidly became a devastating wildfire on the mountain slopes above Bailey and Shawnee. By mid to late afternoon, it was obvious that this fire was out of control and evacuations were needed. Park County Animal Control officers began to assist in the evacuation of pets and people from the areas threatened. To further complicate the process, Park County's animal control facility was forced to evacuate due to severe smoke and the proximity to the fire. Park County moved their animals to the IMHS facility in Pine Junction, which was already filling up with animals from the threatened areas. IMHS Executive Director Dr. Kevin Dennison led a cadre of Board Members and IMHS Volunteers who manned the facility and hosted approximately 30 animals at the facility overnight. Luckily, IMHS maintains a significant inventory of collapsible dog kennels and cat cages so that we can effective increase our capacity by pulling these units out of storage and setting them up.
The next morning, it became obvious that we were overcrowded at the small IMHS facility and we expected many more evacuations as the fire progressed that day. Park County Animal Control, Jefferson County Animal Control, Intermountain Humane Society and Table Mountain Animal Center (TMAC) made a group decision (as members of the Colorado Federation of Animal Welfare Agencies) to move the emergency facility from the IMHS office in Pine Junction to Table Mountain Animal Center near 38th Avenue and I-70. Table Mountain was willing to set up their emergency facility (a large tent with portable animal enclosures) nearer to the fire, but the fire was out of control, spreading and the threat of high winds could move the fire quickly to threaten a temporary facility close to the fire. In addition, setting the facility up in TMAC's back yard provided better access to supplies, volunteers, staff and other resources at TMAC. Animal Control Officers transported animal in need of evacuation from Park County to TMAC. Officers from Park County, Jefferson County, Clear Creek County, Teller County and other pitched in to make this system work beautifully. TMAC took great care to make sure that all animals were identified and that records were kept meticulously to ensure each animal's return to their family. IMHS maintained about 15 animals at our facility, including IMHS foster animals, some Park County animals and evacuated animals. In addition, IMHS worked to answer questions about animal evacuations and to help maintain lines of communication between TMAC and Park County. In all, the effort was very effective and worked reasonably well in this situation. As always, however, we can do better and the involved agencies will be meeting Tuesday May 7 to discuss the episode and work to further refine the multi-agency response to the next crisis. Those of us in Park County need to extend a sincere thank you to Jefferson County Animal Control (Carla Zinanti) and Table Mountain Animal Center (Donna Straub) for their tremendous and unselfish efforts to help in this situation. There was never the least hesitation for all of their resources to be brought to the assistance of Park County! We also need to thank the Boarding Kennels in the area who pitched in to help house animals and assist individual families, Park County and Table Mountain Animal Center in taking good care of evacuated animals. Thanks to Sandy and Tina at Dingo's Den for taking care of Dr. Dennison's dogs during this crisis, so that he could spend all of his time working for IMHS!
LIVESTOCK EVACUATIONS
Livestock evacuations, particularly horses, are critically important in disaster situations. Horses are large animals that take a special trailer and often it takes some time to move horses out of an area. We are lucky to have several groups in our area that have worked out a tremendous system for rapid and massive horse evacuations, partly based on their experiences in the Hi Meadow Fire. Jefferson County Fairgrounds, Jefferson County Animal Control, the Jefferson County Horse Council and the Jefferson County Mounted Search and Rescue activated their emergency procedures and it worked much more smoothly that during the crisis of two years ago. Horses were moved by trained members of the Jefferson County Mounted Search and Rescue along with some volunteers from Park County (Ron Swift among others) at the direction of Animal Control Officers. A staging area at the Burland Arena was later moved to 285 and Rosalie due to heavy smoke and the threat of fire. Horses were identified with the help of the State Brand Inspector prior to leaving the area and then transported to the JeffCo Fairgrounds where JeffCo Fairgrounds Staff and Volunteers from the JeffCo Horse Council cared for them. The training and planning that these groups invested in recently paid off tremendously. Many other horses were moved by their owners to private facilities outside the threatened areas. Our hats go off to all of those groups and individuals who made sure that horses were rapidly and safely removed from threatened areas. We also commend the many individuals who moved horses out of areas near the fire (even though official evacuation orders were not needed) in order to ensure their safety should the fire rapidly worsen. Unfortunately, this community knows very well how quickly that can happen!
THE FUTURE OF DISASTER PLANNING FOR ANIMALS IN OUR COMMUNITY
Animals are an important element in evacuation procedures, falling just behind human lives in the priorities of the disaster response agencies. Park County residents can learn a valuable lesson from Jefferson County in disaster preparedness planning. Having a written disaster plan for pets and livestock, having the resources in place and ready to go, having the agency staffs and volunteers trained and ready to go and having the community understand these resources are of vital importance. Intermountain Humane Society is committed to assisting animal control agencies in Park or Jefferson County in any way we can during these types of problems. IMHS will be actively helping to address animal evacuation issues in Park County for both pets and livestock. We hope to help forge a system that includes Animal Control, the Park County Fairgrounds, kennels, veterinarians, equine professionals and individual horse owners. IMHS will be sending Dr. Kevin Dennison to Fort Worth, Texas at the end of May to participate in a four day conference on Animals in Disaster, present by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). Dr. Dennison will improve his training in disaster preparedness issues to help both locally and in his role with the Emergency Preparedness Committee for the Colorado Federation of Animal Welfare Agencies (CFAWA). IMHS has also applied for grant money to help purchase equipment for emergency situations both locally and as a part of the CFAWA response anywhere in the state. In addition, IMHS has published a brochure entitled "Keeping Animals Safe if Disaster Situations", developed in cooperation with the Colorado Federation of Animal Welfare Agencies and HSUS. To download this brochure in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format, please click here.