They Saved 54 Horses From the L.A. Fires — But Lost Their Farm
When Cha Cha arrived at the farm, the barns and pasture at Will Rogers State Historic Park had fallen into disrepair. Wooden fences sagged and split, their paint faded and peeling. Inside the arena, dead footing deteriorated into a hard, uneven surface, creating a dangerous landscape for horses and riders, while countless rows of broken sprinklers left the surrounding fields dry and brittle.
For Cha Cha Jago Levinson, who grew up riding at Will Rogers — named after Hollywood’s cherished “cowboy philosopher” whose main ranch and stables had been on the property — she saw a safe haven in the middle of Los Angeles. As a child in the Seventies, her single mother, a script supervisor, was often out of town working to support their family, and Levinson would stay with her godmother, who would take her to the state park for riding lessons. When her mother traveled for work, she would tell Levinson to spend her days sitting with the animals. “She would say, ‘The horses are your babysitter,’” Levinson remembers. “Will Rogers became this incredible place where I found so much security.”
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Years later, Levinson’s husband died, and she used the small life insurance policy to put a bid on the farm. “Rogers has always been so important to me, and when it came up for lease in the Department of Parks and Rec, I knew it was this massive undertaking… but I took it,” says Levinson, who also poured her life savings into the project. “It was my lifeline, my salvation.”
In 2020, Jigsaw Farms won the contract to open the equine riding company at Will Rogers, and Levinson and her team went straight to work.
Stephanie Houge, who runs operations and projects, says that while their staff in the beginning was small, everyone pitched in to help resurrect the farm, including cleaning stalls and exercising horses, dragging giant sprinklers and seeding the fields, fixing and painting the fences, adding 200 tons of new granite in the arena, and replacing the old footing with healthy dirt. “One of the best things that I noticed when we revitalized: the wildlife came back,” remarks Houge. “Deer returned to the area to graze on the pastures alongside the horses. Quail and toads began to gather near the small ponds where horses would roll around.”
The following year, Jigsaw officially opened its doors, slowly taking in students and bringing in new horses, some who had been abandoned and adopted by Levinson.
Holiday Kriegel, a trainer at Jigsaw, says that the once-neglected farm transformed into “this magical place, there was a lot of joy and a lot of happiness.”
On Jan. 7, 2025, Jigsaw — the pastures, barn, and arena they had lovingly brought back to life — was lost in the Los Angeles fires that engulfed the Pacific Palisades.
AT NOON THAT DAY, IT appeared that the horses would be safe behind the Polo fields. Smoke from the Palisades fire billowed over the mountain ridge, but as the sun bathed Jigsaw Farms in its warm light, it looked far away. Still, Levinson wasn’t taking chances.
“Out of an abundance of caution, we moved all our horses,” she says. The slope from Jigsaw to the field, located at the base of Will Rogers State Park, was a mile long, and each of the 54 horses had to be led individually.
By the time they reached the field, it was chaos. The area had been converted into a staging area for firefighters. Helicopters landed, refueled, and took off. Bright red trucks ferried in and out as their lights spun with urgency. First responders zigzagged in between the vehicles while chopper blades kicked loose sod into the air. For a moment, the Jigsaw team marveled at it all.
“I remember the firemen going, ‘If you’re going to be safe anywhere, it’s right here because this is our staging area,’” recalls Brad Langenberg, who teaches equine assisted learning at the farm. “But they were so overwhelmed. They had so many fires going on… then we realized [the fire] is coming. It’s coming quickly.”
When the trucks and helicopters rushed to clear out, that’s when the Jigsaw team “knew it was way more serious than we even imagined,” says Levinson.
As the Santa Ana winds surged throughout the Palisades at 100 miles per hour, it became clear that the park that was once a refuge was no longer safe.
The gale had grown so strong that the horses and Jigsaw staff struggled to stay upright, and with limited trailers, only four horses could be evacuated at a time.
Levinson and her team began to reach out to neighbors and friends with extra trailers, who drove up to the fields to help load the horses as the smoke etched out the pale sky. The horses, sensing the sudden change, began to stir. For those guiding them, staying cool-headed was imperative. “They’re such emotional animals and they respond to their environment completely, and so we just had to be as calm as we possibly could for them,” says Levinson. “We had neighbors that have horses with their trailers parked in the Pacific Palisades, anyone who had an empty one would come up. … People who didn’t even know if their house was lost were still helping us with the horses.”
Together with the grooms — caretakers responsible for the daily welfare and health of the animals — trainers, friends, and neighbors, Levinson loaded the horses into trailers to move them to Sullivan Canyon in Brentwood, the farm’s sister location about five miles away.
By the time the last horse left Will Rogers, the fire swept through an hour later. Jigsaw Farms, along with the historic Will Rogers ranch house and its main stable, were consumed by the nearly 24,000-acre blaze.
AT SUNDOWN, THE HERD HAD to move out of Brentwood as the fire headed toward Sullivan Canyon. Henry, Levinson’s son who was part of the evacuation effort, says that as they drove away, “the sky burned orange and ash fell to the ground.” By midnight, all 54 horses had been relocated to the Los Angeles Equestrian Center in Burbank, which had turned into a shelter for large animals amid the disaster.
Within 12 hours, Jigsaw’s horses and staff had gone from thinking the fires were at a safe distance to losing their home and livelihood, and being thrusted into yet another new environment. Now, they were among other livestock evacuees — donkeys spray painted with numbers corresponding to their owners huddled in a corner, a miniature cow nestled on top of a straw pile. There were also pigs from barns across Los Angeles that had been ordered to evacuate, and horses found wandering the county, their owners having released them in a desperate rush to flee.
“We are the largest municipal equestrian center in the nation,” Jennie Nevin, the executive director of business development and communications at the center, tells Rolling Stone. While the facility, found within Griffith Park, is usually a hub for horse shows, private events, and concerts, it doubles as a refuge during times of disaster. “We brought in 200 to 300 evacuees at any one time,” says Nevin. “We have volunteers who start to appear, sometimes 50 to 100 at a time. The volunteers are [helping] clean the stalls. They’re helping with the feeding. They help walk and exercise the horses.”
In the days following the eruption of the Los Angeles fires, children called and texted their instructors at Jigsaw to make sure their favorite horses were doing okay. “Most of my students that I teach, their homes and school are gone after all of this,” says Kriegel. “I’ve been in touch with every single one of them. I was FaceTiming and sending photos to all of my kids and making sure that they knew that their favorite ponies were safe and happy and well taken care of. I think that brings them a lot of comfort.”
Along with being a riding school, Jigsaw also served as a learning program and collaborated with elementary schools throughout Los Angeles including Will Rogers, MacArthur Park, Sixth Avenue, and Fletcher Drive. “Our mission was to have horses be accessible to everybody in L.A.,” says Levinson. “That was like part of our goal for Will Rogers. It was very much the city that we love meets nature.”
Amelia Goldman, another trainer at the farm, remembers those field trips fondly. “They’ll get off the bus, you’ll see them, and they’re all rowdy, you know, being kids,” she smiles. “As soon as they get within the realm of the horses, all the kids kind of settle,” Goldman continues, before echoing the sentiment shared by many who have visited or worked at Jigsaw: “It’s really kind of magical.”
Her eight-year-old son, Avery, whom she taught how to ride on the grounds, agrees. “That’s all of my experience at Will Rogers — is a big box of fun,” he declares.
Will Rogers, with its close proximity to the city while remaining tucked away in the mountains, also became an ideal setting for equine therapy. Somatic therapist Clancey Cornell works with individuals who experienced trauma and abuse, and held sessions at the farm; she sees the accessibility of the public park and Levinson’s goal of building a space that embraces a breadth of equine practices the key to what makes Jigsaw “unique.”
“Access to green space in Los Angeles is limited, and the properties that have horses tend to be more private, whether it’s a private family home or an equestrian center that you need to be a member at,” Cornell points out. “Cha Cha has her operation [at Will Rogers], and she’s open to collaborating with facilitators — not every barn owner would be open to something like that.”
Langenberg, who works primarily with people struggling with drug and alcohol addiction and a survivor himself, says that Will Rogers was the first place he “could just feel my whole body relax.”
“Everything about recovery is connected and that’s what I see at Will Rogers. Everybody slows down enough to finally connect and get grounded in the present moment,” adds Langenberg, who has been coming to the park for decades. When looking back at what led him to Jigsaw, he says, “What I really appreciated about Cha Cha was she had a real love for the park that I hadn’t seen.”
In one of Southern California’s most brutal catastrophes, firefighters struggled to contain the inferno that caused 200,000 residents to flee as their homes, business, schools, and neighborhoods burned.
TWO WEEKS AFTER THE FIRES BEGAN, another catastrophic blaze broke out, this time near the Castaic community — the Hughes fire spread to over 5,000 acres in two hours. As the accelerating climate emergency intensifies California’s “weather whiplash” and its hotter, drier landscape fueled the flames that engulfed more than 57,000 acres and claimed at least 28 lives, the future of Los Angelenos and the spaces they hold close to their hearts remains unclear.
When visiting Cha Cha and the Jigsaw team at the L.A. Equestrian Center, there’s a sense of pride, loss, and sheer tenacity among the tight-knit group. There’s a matter-of-fact approach to the situation, bolstered by wells of empathy for their displaced friends and family, and for each other. Bales of hay, medications for the animals, feed, and other donations have flooded to the shelter, and a GoFundMe launched to rebuild Jigsaw Farms.
Amid the uncertainty and new surroundings, the folks at Jigsaw check in with one another, asking what the horses need, and if someone needs water, a sandwich, coffee, or a break, and if their families are safe and doing okay. When asked what lies ahead for the farm, Levinson says that they “don’t know if we have anywhere to go back to or not,” but that creating a place that the kids and horses can safely return to is their top priority.
“We all keep positive thoughts,” says Francisco Santana, a grooms whose father and uncle also work with Levinson. “We’re all okay. We’re working. Horses are happy. They’re all safe, healthy. That’s what matters.”
This isn’t the end, vows Goldman. “California is resilient, like the plants, we will regrow, the beauty will return. We don’t know what will happen, but we’re really hopeful,” she says.
For now, Levinson is focused on the work ahead. “The staff that saved our horses’ lives need saving, too,” she says. “This place means the world to me. Bringing it back to its full glory is going to be a difficult journey, but it’s made easier because it’s a labor of love.”
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