Pet Rescuers Swung Into Action During Fires
2011 wildfire evacuations sometimes happened too fast for residents to collect their or their neighbors' pets. Photo by Matt Largey/KUT NewsAudio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
A year ago today, large wildfires broke out in Bastrop, Steiner Ranch, Spicewood, Pflugerville and other parts of Central Texas. Hundreds of people were forced from their homes and grabbed whatever they could in the few minutes they had. But that often meant that pets were left behind to fend for themselves.
Michelle Bielinski had a wildfire bearing down on her Steiner Ranch neighborhood. Firefighters came to her house and told her to evacuate. Her family was waiting in the car.
“And then I started walking back towards the house that is closest to me,” Bielinski said. “Because they were out of town, but we had known the dogs were there because we could hear them barking. That’s when the policeman stopped us from going back over to their house. Because at that point we were going to break the window to see if we can get them out, but we weren’t able to.”
Bielinski didn’t give up. She asked a firefighter if he could rescue the dogs.
Bielinski: “And he said that there weren’t enough fire personnel for people, so we just all did what we could.”
The dogs didn’t survive.
But many other animals did make it. Some were fed and watered by first responders in the evacuation zone. In Bastrop, pets were piling up at the animal shelter. The situation was so dire that animal protection groups in neighboring cities offered to help take in some of the animals to relieve the burden.
The Austin Humane Society was one of those groups. Chief veterinarian Katie Luke was working that day, when injured and abandoned animals started pouring in.
“I guess chaotic is the best way to say it,” Luke said. “Because a truck would arrive, and the energy level went up and we were excited to be able to help, and we would just triage and get them all situated. Then the next truck would come. It was just kind of a constant flow of animals.”
As the day went on, she said, animals arrived with more serious injuries.
“Third-degree burns to the feet, so their foot pads were completely burned through and gone,” she said. “That was something I’ve never seen before. So that was a little heartbreaking. We obviously had to figure out how to take care of these cats the best way. Most of them were kitties.”
Eventually owners started coming looking for their pets. But Austin Humane Society staff encountered one major obstacle when trying to reunite them.
“Most of the kitties we saw, especially the longer haired kitties, their coats were singed so much that when we first saw these cats, the first few we saw, we thought maybe they had been shaven recently,” Luke said. “It really looked like they had been groomed down to their skin. They still had a very short hair coat, but none of the longhaired cats came out with long hair.”
Workers used photographs to try to match hair color patterns with the injured pets. Only a few of the cats were implanted with microchips. Those were all reunited with their owners.
Only a couple of animals were so badly injured they had to be put to sleep. The rest recovered, although in some cases it took weeks. Every single one found a home.
Luke says the experience has transformed how the Austin Humane Society prepares for emergencies. “I think before the Bastrop fires we were thinking more of the Humane Society as a place to provide that evacuation sheltering, and we stepped into a role that we haven’t been in before, providing this intensive care, emergency care, and we saw that we could do it and do it well,” she said. “It’s completely made us even more dedicated to emergency response, but also elevated the level that we expect from ourselves.”
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