Spiders, fish and oysters saved: These pet rescuers are capturing hearts amid the LA fires
LOS ANGELES – Krissy Simmel stopped her Jeep at an intersection inside the fire-scorched Pacific Palisades neighborhood and lowered the window when she saw a military police officer.
“Were animals rescued today?’’ she asked.
“Just a lady with some spiders,’’ the officer replied. “I’m serious.’’
The wildfires in Los Angeles have killed at least 25 people, destroyed or damaged more than 12,000 homes, businesses and other structures and triggered something else: a massive pet rescue effort.
The rescued include untold cats and dogs, goats and fish, and, according to the officer, Army reservist Jimmy Garcia, on Monday in the Pacific Palisades, arachnids.
The woman apparently talked her way into an area recently blocked to residents, as officials try to protect properties from looters, squatters and fire-related risks. That would align with some of the pet rescue methods: cajoling, a little fibbing and a lot of TLC.
Simmel, who is in her 50s and grew up in Pacific Palisades, was in midmission on Monday.
She had been forced to evacuate her home in the area six days earlier. Now she was back for the animals.
“All that awfulness, and there’s life still in there?’’ Simmel said, referring to the more than 23,000 acres burned in the Palisades Fire. The prospect of their survival, of rescuing them, she said, is "beautiful and amazing.’’
On the front lines of the pet rescue effort
Simmel is an unofficial volunteer on the front lines of the pet rescue effort. And she has the time for it. She lost a job at a local supermarket in October and then the dress shop where she had been helping a friend burned down last week.
She pulled her Jeep into the driveway of the property where she lived ? a guesthouse she stayed in for the past 2-1/2 years. Carrying a bucket, she opened a wooden gate. The main house and the guest house were spared by the fires. She headed to a small pond.
“Hi!’’ Simmel said, looking into the water. “So everybody’s present and accounted for?’’
All seven koi fish, present and accounted for.
Simmel tossed in fistfuls of food. Nearby homes were burned down.
“I’d say it’s a miracle that the water didn’t get hot enough to harm them,’’ Simmel said of the fish, who have been in the homeowners' family for 15 to 20 years. She couldn't move them, but she could feed them. “It’s just giving all of us that live here a sense of normalcy and peace of mind to know that God’s creatures are going to be OK for another night.’’
Cowboy and Luna stranded
The rescue tales of the pets of the Palisades are not hard to come by. In Simmel's case, there was the 97-year-old man and his wife who needed help reuniting with their dog.
And the 35-year-old nonprofit consultant who drove to the Palisades on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, to rescue cats belonging to his aging mother-in-law and her roommate. In the chaos of the evacuation on Tuesday, the cats were left behind.
The consultant, Erik Morentin, told USA TODAY he was turned away each day while being told residents could enter only to retrieve medication, not pets.
On Friday, Morentin said, he was ready to give up.
“I'm begging the police officers and they're telling me no and only for medication purposes, and that's about the time when Krissy and her friends jump in,’’ he said. “(They) just said, 'he’s in my neighborhood and I can take him in my car, and we know we can just swing by his mother-in-law's house and we can get these cats and he can pick up his medication for his mother-in-law.' Which really at that point, she was just trying to help me get through to get to the cats.’’
The house was intact and the cats were alive, Morentin said.
“I ran back to Sunset (Boulevard) and Krissy met me up in her Jeep, and it was just completely overwhelming,’’ he said. “I just said, ‘Thank you so much. You just saved these cats' lives.’ ”
“These cats had been out without food and water for four days. They were incredibly dehydrated.’’
Morentin texted USA TODAY photos of the cats – an orange tabby, Cowboy, and a gray tabby, Luna.
Don't forget about the pet oyster
As the late afternoon sky began to darken, the white Jeep still was parked in front of the home with the well-fed koi. But Simmel wasn’t done.
On a table outside the guesthouse, she poured food for the birds and squirrels. “I also have a pet oyster who survived,’’ she said, noting the shellfish didn't have any water after the fire had swept through. "Hopefully, he’s OK.’’
As she drove out of the charred neighborhood, she stopped by Fire Station No. 69. She hugged the firefighters. Tears ran down her cheeks.
“God bless,’’ she told each of them before climbing into the Jeep, distinguishable by the “Trust Jesus’’ bumper sticker on the inside lower corner of her front windshield.
"Suddenly, we strangers become a family. That’s the beautiful part," Simmel remarked.
And off into the night she drove.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: LA fires pet rescue: Meet the folks saving our furry friends