As flames from the Eaton fire engulfed a neighborhood in Altadena, California, earlier this year, a family frantically loaded their beloved cat and dog into their car. Suddenly, a neighbor’s propane tank exploded — startling Canelo, a pit bull, who jumped out of the vehicle and ran off. His family couldn’t find him and had to flee for their lives.
A day or two later, someone found Canelo wandering around the burn zone and brought him to Pasadena Humane, a nonprofit animal shelter that serves Altadena, Pasadena and other parts of the San Gabriel Valley devasted by the wildfire.
“He was burned pretty badly,” says Kevin McManus, public relations and communications manager at Pasadena Humane. “Thankfully, he survived.”
Canelo wasn’t wearing a collar or microchipped, but the shelter snapped a photo and shared it on the “found pets” section of their Eaton fire emergency page and got him veterinary care.
“We have an animal ICU here on site, and five full-time veterinarians who work here,” he says.
Thanks to the photo, Canelo’s family learned he was at Pasadena Humane and came to see him. They’d lost their home to the fire, so the shelter continued to care for Canelo and treat his burned paws and other injuries for nearly a month.
When he was ready to leave, the shelter shared a touching reunion video on social media.
“I got to witness when his family came to pick him up to take him home,” McManus says. “It was just the sweetest. There was not a dry eye in the room. Canelo’s whole body was wagging and he was licking the guy’s face. The owner said, ‘I can buy new things. I can rebuild my home, but I can’t buy another Canelo. I can’t find another dog like this.’ I still get choked up thinking about it.”
Coping With The Crisis
Canelo is one of over 1,500 pets who landed at Pasadena Humane during the catastrophic Eaton fire, which killed at least 17 people and destroyed more than 9,400 buildings. Pasadena Humane always offers emergency boarding for pets — free of charge — so some animals were temporarily surrendered by evacuees without access to a pet-friendly place to stay. Many others were rescued by firefighters and animal control officers.
When the fire erupted on the evening of January 7, shelters throughout the state helped Pasadena Humane make space for an influx of displaced pets by taking around 150 dogs, 50 cats and other pets, like rabbits. The shelter created an emergency hotline for people to report lost, found and left-behind pets, and essentially became a command post to care for displaced pets, with help from other shelters and organizations, including American Humane, K9 Youth Alliance, Marin Humane, ASPCA, Santa Barbara Humane, San Diego Humane Society, Banfield Foundation and VCA Animal Hospitals.
Hundreds of volunteers — “too many to count” — helped sort donations for people affected by the wildfires, clean laundry, direct traffic and do anything that needed to be done to allow shelter staff to focus on caring for the animals coming in, according to McManus.
“We’ve never taken in that number of animals,” he says. “All day long, we were just taking in animals, taking in animals, taking in animals. And it was emotionally difficult, but also logistically difficult. We had cats in offices and dogs in crates in our training room, and we were using all the kennels we have in our spay/neuter clinic for housing. We had to be really creative and put animals basically anywhere we could.”
So when pets started being reunited with their families, Pasadena Humane would share the good news with the team, which helped boost morale.
“Every time that happened, it was like, ‘OK, we’re getting closer to getting to some kind of normalcy getting through this crisis,’” he says. “It was pretty special.”
Nursing Skinny Minnie Back To Health — And Her Family
Like Canelo, many displaced pets suffered burns from the blaze. One cat, Skinny Minnie, was a community cat being fed by a couple hoping to integrate her into their family, which includes two indoor cats. When they had to evacuate, they couldn’t find her and had to leave without her.
When someone brought Skinny Minnie to Pasadena Humane, she was in such bad shape that she was “unrecognizable,” according to McManus.
“We had her in an oxygen chamber for a couple of days because she had such bad smoke inhalation,” he recalls. “She couldn’t open her eyes. She had burns on her paws.”
Over the course of the next month, whenever Skinny Minnie would get a little better, the shelter would post a new photo of her on its “found” page. Oscar winner Adrien Brody cuddled the bitty kitty while volunteering, which reportedly helped her relax during her ordeal.
Eventually, she’d healed enough that her family could recognize her.
“They had pictures, and she really responded to them,” McManus says.
Skinny Minnie is still at the shelter because she’s going to need multiple surgeries.
“We’re just going to keep doing that until she’s as healthy as we can get her,” he says. “They’re such a sweet couple. They come and visit her at least three or four or five times a week and just hang out with her. I’m excited for them to finally be able to take her home.”
Pasadena Humane is still caring for around 150 animals like Skinny Minnie whose families lost their homes.
“Obviously we are not charging people for this,” McManus says. “This is just something that we do for our community.”
So Pasadena Humane welcomes financial donations to help offset costs, as well as volunteers, fosters and adopters.
He’s incredibly grateful to all the people who have stepped up to help both pets and people affected by the Eaton Fire. It means the world to McManus and the Pasadena Humane team every time there’s a happy pet reunion at the shelter.
“It was such a terrible situation and something that we never thought we would have to face on such a scale, so it’s a reminder of why we all come to work every day and why we’re here for our community,” he says. “We can’t do much about the fire or rebuild people’s homes, but we can at least assure people that their animals are in good hands while they’re with us, and we’re just as excited to see them go home as the people are to get them.”
