Safer Pastures Found for Animals as Flames Close In on Ranches : Refuges: Shelter officers and volunteers help residents. The county fairgrounds is prepared to accept livestock.

Eileen Carlson saw the orange smoke drifting over Sulphur Mountain, closing in on Yellow Horse Farm north of Santa Paula, and she knew it was time to evacuate the animals.

“I’m the housesitter. The owner is in New York and she doesn’t even know what’s happening,” Carlson said Wednesday afternoon as she waited for a friend to arrive with a horse trailer. “I just have to do what I think is best. I think this is best.”

Carlson and hundreds of other Ventura County residents were forced to relocate pets and other animals as fires near Santa Paula, Ojai, Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks threatened homes and stables.

Janet Dresser and her fiance, Thomas Black, both residents of Malibu, were among many who made their horse trailers available to anyone who needed them. They spent the early part of the afternoon helping rescue 18 thoroughbreds stranded at a ranch and an adjacent pasture on Cotharin Road in the Santa Monica Mountains.

By 5 p.m., Ventura County Animal Control had evacuated scores of animals from the area, including 15 horses, two goats and several dozen rabbits and guinea pigs. Most were taken to the Lazy J Ranch and Camp Joan Mier near the Los Angeles County line, according to Animal Control Officer Bob Wisma.

Wisma said an additional 25 horses may have been trapped in another ranch in the same area, but the fire prevented animal control officers from reaching them. “So we don’t know the situation,” Wisma said.

In Ventura, Richard Tucker, maintenance and operations supervisor at the Ventura County Fairgrounds, prepared the facility for an expected stampede of horses and livestock needing shelter.

Tucker said the fairgrounds had stalls, makeshift pens and an arena that could accommodate up to 175 horses and about 1,000 smaller farm animals. He expected to see the place heavily populated as shelters fill up and fires continued to force the relocation of animals.

Animal evacuations began early above Santa Paula. Shari and Craig Latta noticed flames at 5:45 a.m. They quickly moved some of their 10 horses to a safe pasture and others to a friend’s ranch, and their four dogs to a local veterinarian. They took their two children to a friend’s house, and returned to fight the fire.

“Once you have your children and your livestock out, you really can calm down and think about saving the house,” Shari Latta said. “We’re not going to leave.”

At the Ventura County Humane Society office in Ojai, Carolyn Toberman and her two daughters dropped off the family’s three dogs, a cat, a bird and a hamster, and were waiting for husband and father Steven Toberman to arrive with a goat, another cat and a horse.

Carolyn Toberman said she and her husband rushed home from work at noon, after hearing that the Ojai fire had closed in on their Matilija Canyon home. “We knew we had to get them out of there,” she said.

Many other Ojai animals were at greater risk because of absentee owners, according to Kelly Wooten, animal control officer at the Ojai facility. “A lot of people board their animals up in the Wheeler Canyon area and they don’t live there themselves,” she said. “It gets to a point where it’s too late.”

Ventura County animal shelters received assistance from their counterparts in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles counties.

“We are providing places to take the animals,” said Bruce Richards, manager of the Agoura Animal Shelter. “Santa Barbara and Ventura are picking up the horses and we’re finding ranches to bring them to.”

Near Lake Sherwood, officials at the Animal Actors facility, where Hollywood animals are housed, were planning to relocate their lions, tigers, leopards and primates to the Moorpark College exotic animal compound. Earlier in the day, the compound took in about 75 exotic birds from an evacuated aviary in Box Canyon near Simi Valley.

While domesticated animals were uprooted, officials offered differing views on the fate of wild fauna.

“We don’t expect any large impact on the wildlife,” said Patrick Moore of the State Department of Fish and Game. “The fire is fast-moving, so burrowing animals shouldn’t be too heavily affected. Also, larger animals will smell it coming several miles away and will get out of the way.” But Martine Colette, director of Wildlife Way Station in Angeles National Forest, said she expected a significant loss of wildlife.

“There is a loss of life out there, very much so,” she said. “Obviously unless somebody sifted through the rubble, there’s no way of telling how many lost lives, but there will be quite a few.”