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Retired Marine rescues animals from California wildfires
Retired Marine rescues horses from raging California wildfire that has killed five and displaced more than 38,000 people
- Tucker Zimmerman is venturing into evacuation zones to save horses left behind
- Stables, rodeo grounds, and ranches are offering their property for the livestock
- Residents have called Zimmerman for help while rushing to evacuate from fire
- Carr fire killed an 80-year-old woman and her two great-grandchildren this week
- It has destroyed more than 500 buildings and charred almost 84,000 acres
As thousands of Californians continue to flee from a raging deadly fire, one retired US Marine is running towards the flames to save stranded horses.
Tucker Zimmerman has been venturing into evacuation zones to save panicked livestock that others have had to leave behind.
The Carr fire, which continues to rip through northern California, has already taken the lives of a woman and her great-grandchildren as well as two firefighters.
But despite the daunting task, Zimmerman is modest about his accomplishments.
‘I’m just the guy who moves stuff around,’ he said.
Zimmerman uses a large trailer borrowed from his job selling tractor equipment to rescue the animals.
On Saturday he had just delivered five horses to safety when he received a call to pick up others nearby.
The horses were being taken to stables, rodeo grounds, and ranches whose owners have opened their property to the steady stream of livestock rescued by Zimmerman since Wednesday.
‘He restored my faith in humanity,’ said Noah Urban, an Oregon resident whose stranded six-year-old horse named Bolt was saved by Zimmerman.
‘You’re not just helping the animals, he’s helping people to alleviate their stress,’ Urban said.
‘It would be like losing your children. If you had to leave them behind, I can’t even think about it.’
Zimmerman is not alone. Communicating through social media, text messages, radio and word-of-mouth, a network of animal lovers and animal-control authorities have banded together to rescue as many stranded animals as possible.
An empty storefront in an Anderson outlet mall is currently being used as overflow housing for the animals of Haven Humane Society.
Besides their usual charges seeking full-time homes, volunteers were accepting dogs and cats brought in by evacuated residents unable to care for their pets while displaced.
Meanwhile, Zimmerman has been helping rescue more than just the horses.
‘I saved a guy named Matt. He was trying to water down his house’ Zimmerman recalled. ‘I said, “Let’s go!”
The Carr Fire, the deadliest and most destructive of nearly 90 wildfires burning from Texas to Oregon, has destroyed more than 500 buildings and charred almost 84,000 acres of since erupting last Monday.
More than 38,000 people remained under evacuation orders in and around the city of Redding on Sunday.
The weather on Sunday is expected to offer no relief for firefighters as it will hit more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit with low humidity and gusty winds, according to the National Weather Service.
As of Saturday night, an army of some 3,500 firefighting personnel and a squadron of 17 water-dropping helicopters had managed to carve buffer lines around just five percent of the fire’s perimeter.
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