LA Fires, One Year Later

One year ago, we all watched in horror as the LA fires created mass chaos and destruction. Today marks the anniversary of the devastating Palisades and Eaton fires, which combined to claim 31 lives and destroy over 16,000 structures.

Animal responders worked tirelessly to answer urgent calls for help, providing food and water for animals who were inside mandatory evacuation zones or who were missing.

Volunteers from Northern California, including the North Valley Animal Disaster Group (NVADG) and Napa CART, stepped up to support the response.

Napa CART volunteers, leveraging skills gained through CART trainings, worked remotely as hotline operators, coordinating information after speaking with community members, maintaining a vital lifeline for animals in need for 18 days.

Efforts like these were made possible by the deployment of Shelterly, a system for tracking, managing, and caring for animals and field team responses that was developed by Trevor Skaggs. Shelterly was activated for over 30 days throughout both fires impacting approximately 2300 animals including cats just like Aggie, in addition to Koi Ponds that survived.

One year later, much good has come from the animal responder community who have worked together to share lessons learned and improved options for animals left behind. 

In March of 2025, at the Cal CARTs Summit hosted in Davis, California, multiple LA area responders shared their stories and their experience with CARTs from across the state, including representatives from LA City and LA County.

Input from the activation helped teams provide feedback to strengthen Shelterly, improving field team and animal tracking and animal reunification, including a collaboration with Petco Love Lost. 

Thanks to the generosity of the California Veterinary Emergency Team (CVET) and the ASPCA CARTs were granted funding for access to Shelterly, PPE, equipment, and operating funds to enhance their ability to respond quickly and safely to future activations. 

In October 2025, Governor Gavin Newsom signed the Found Act (AB478) into law, requiring counties to plan ahead for animal reunification in large scale disasters, directly addressing some of the gaps identified from the LA fires.

Over the past ten years, there have been a series of devastating disasters that have tested the existing response infrastructure for animals. As difficult as this anniversary is, one bright bit of hope is that we have moved the needle forward for the animals left behind.

Interested in learning more? Connect with and join a CART in your area. Click here to see a list of animal response teams and the communities they serve. Learn more at www.calcarts.org