Horse owners in Kearny race to move their animals during the 2015 Kearny River Fire. The fire crept too close for comfort to corrals where the horses were stabled.
Do you live in Oracle? Do you own horses?
If you answered yes to both questions, ask yourself this: what will you do with your horses should a wildfire threaten the area?
Wildfires in Arizona are just a fact of the environment. Arizona gets dry and hot during the summer. Both factor in heavily to wildfires.
Oracle Fire District and the Oracle Firewise Group want to make sure that everyone, including the equine residents of the area, are safely evacuated in the event of a wildfire.
Several years ago, the town of Kearny was threatened by a wildfire in the Gila River bottom. The fire came very near to the corrals where many residents stabled their horses. They had to rush to get their animals out safely. A couple of ranchers in Dudleyville offered to take the animals in the emergency, an offer that not many knew about in the panic of the moment.
Oracle wants to prevent this type of confusion.
The next meeting date of the Oracle Horse Owners Evacuation Preparation Group (OHO) will be Thursday, April 12, at 6 p.m. at the Oracle Fire Station.
The purpose of this meeting is:
• To educate Oracle residents of the need to prepare for evacuations in advance of an emergency.
• To connect horse owners with other horse owners, to help one another.
• To determine safe staging areas and temporary shelters.
• To establish a list of people with horse trailers who are willing to re-enter evacuated areas of Oracle to pick up horses in staging areas.
• To communicate this list of people to the Oracle Fire District to ensure access to staging areas.
To sign up for future meeting dates and more information, please email: horses.are.purlove@gmail.com or call the Oracle Fire Station: 896-2980.