In darkness, dust and smoke amid the chaotic escape of dozens of rural Butte County residents from the exploding Park Fire on Wednesday night, a pair of Rottweilers and their four puppies were left in a disabled white Chevrolet pickup truck beside a remote dirt road in the forest. An inferno was approaching from the south as the owner and others fled for their lives.
“She had to jump in with somebody else, regrettably leaving the dogs,” said Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea.
The owner notified the Sheriff’s Office that she had been forced to abandon the Rottweilers, but she was not able to provide an exact location for the truck, Honea said.
“It was so confusing that night,” Honea said.
The raging fire — which as of Monday afternoon had scorched 370,237 acres across four counties, making it California’s 6th largest in recorded history — swept through behind the evacuees and the area where the dogs were left.
Trees fallen across the road foiled initial attempts to reach the animals to find out if they had survived, Honea said.
Daytime temperatures in the area were nearing triple digits.
On Saturday morning, Conner Smith, a 22-year-old helicopter pilot for Butte County, was told by North Valley Animal Disaster Group, a Chico-based animal-rescue non-profit, that the Silverado pickup was believed to be near Campbellville, a hamlet in the mountains northeast of Chico. Smith was planning an overflight of the tiny outpost, so, with Honea’s approval, he told the group he could take a search-and-rescue member and land him at a nearby helipad, Smith said.
Smith lifted off that morning with Trevor Skaggs, a Butte County Search and Rescue training officer, who volunteers at the animal-rescue group. They landed at the helipad east of Campbellville.
Skaggs, who competes in ultra-marathons, took off running, descending about 1,000 vertical feet into a steep-sided canyon. A mile-and-a-half later, he found the truck in a small clearing beside the road. The surrounding trees and bushes had burned, Smith said.
Skaggs’ wife Christina said her husband was prepared for the worst — it had been more than two days since the dogs were left behind. “He thought he was going to find them all deceased but he was so happy to find some of them alive,” Christina Skaggs said.
The mother and three puppies were lying in the dirt near the truck. Another puppy, and the father, were inside the truck, which had the windows partially open. The father was dead, likely of dehydration, Smith said. The other five dogs had survived.
“All the puppies started barking at him, like, ‘Who are you?’” Christina said. “He was able to coax mom to take a drink out of his hand. Once she decided he was OK, all the puppies were like, ‘OK, we like you.’”
Skaggs, a vegan because of his his life-long love for animals, has a way with dogs, especially the variety at hand, Christina said. “His first dog was a a Rottweiler when he was a kid,” she said.
Skaggs began singing, and giving the dogs little pieces of a granola bar. “They got all excited and just ran right after him,” Christina said. “They just followed him like the pied piper.”
Skaggs brought the dogs to a creek, where they drank and cooled off in the water. Then they continued up the road, reaching the chopper about an hour after Skaggs left. “He just kind of appeared up the road and maybe 10 feet behind him he has a herd of puppies, and the female was at the very end and was kind of herding them to the helicopter,” Smith said.
The two men planned “how we’re going to load an 80-pound Rottweiler” into the aircraft. “We have no clue how it’s going to be in a helicopter,” Smith said. And they made plans for “how to keep the puppies contained,” an important concern because there was no barrier blocking access to the cockpit and flight controls from the seating and cargo area in the rear, Smith said.
The mother dog, once hoisted in, laid down on a seat in the back. Her pups, believed to be a few months old, were a different story.
“The puppies were all over the place — they were all up in my seat and the co-pilot’s seat and under the seats in the back,” Smith said.
Skaggs and Smith wrangled small dogs for about 10 minutes, until one fell asleep under the back seats, another snoozed on the floor, and the other two cuddled into Skaggs’ arms in a back seat.
“The mom was curled up in the back seats and put her head on Trevor,” Smith said. “I really didn’t expect her to be that great in a helicopter. It worked out very well.”
Members of the animal-rescue group met the chopper in Chico and took charge of the dogs.
“They were dehydrated,” said Norm Rosene, a volunteer for the group. “We had a vet right there. As soon as we got them some water and got them hydrated they perked up. We caught them in time.”
On Monday, the dog family was still at one of the group’s shelter facilities. “They’re thriving,” Rosene said. “We gave them all baths yesterday to get all the soot off them and everything, and they’re beautiful dogs. They’re all fluffy. You can’t help but smile when you look at them.”
The group’s volunteers, whenever they get a break from the busy rescue work still underway, go to the dogs’ enclosure and pet the puppies, Rosene said. “They’re getting lots of good attention,” he said. “They’re all playing and barking.”
The pups’ mother is healthy, Rosene said.
The rescue group has been in touch with the dogs’ owner, whose home appears to have been lost to the fire, but it was unclear Monday when the dogs would be returned, Rosene said.
For the group’s volunteers, the rescue has provided a lift, Rosene said.
“We’re really tired,” he said. “We’ve been going up and back into the burned area. We’ve seen burned animals. It perked us all up.”
For residents in the area of the massive wildfire, Honea said, “it’s a glimmer of hope in an otherwise bleak situation.”
