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A strike team surrounded the Wildlife Waystation animal sanctuary to protect the animals that could not be evacuated<\/strong><\/p>\n SYLMAR, Calif.\u00a0 \u2014 About two dozen Contra Costa firefighters spent last week fighting the devastating Creek Fire in Southern California with a particularly unusual assignment.<\/span><\/p>\n The strike team surrounded the Wildlife Waystation \u2014 an animal sanctuary home to more than 400 permanent animal residents, including chimpanzees, tigers, lions, leopards, bears, wolves and hyenas \u2014 to protect the animals that could not be evacuated from the encroaching Creek Fire.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t say enough about the assistance the Waystation got,\u201d said facility spokesman Jerry Brown. \u201cWithout the firefighters, I don\u2019t even want to go into how nasty and terrible it could\u2019ve been. They saved the place.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The Creek Fire, which is now nearly fully contained, destroyed 60 homes and 63 outbuildings, and damaged nearly as many. It burned more than 15,000 acres, according to Cal Fire.<\/span><\/p>\n The blaze started early in the morning on Dec. 5 in a valley near the sanctuary and took off that night, eventually circling the isolated 160-acre exotic animal park in the hills north of Highway 210 in Sylmar, in the San Fernando Valley.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe had just tremendous wind gusts,\u201d said Brown, who has been associated with the sanctuary since 1995. \u201cThis was as windy as I\u2019ve ever seen it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n —————————————————-<\/p>\n Re Blog<\/p>\n