With a rescue team scaling back, who will save horses from the next wildfire?
LOS ANGELES -- Dee Dee Friedrich remembers how haphazard wildfire horse rescues used to be in Orange County, California, before a team formed to cart animals to safety.
In 2008, the Freeway Complex fire ignited in Corona and raged over the hills into Yorba Linda, where she lived.
With a few hours to spare, Friedrich and her husband roped squealing pigs and guided distressed horses into a trailer and hauled them out.
By the time they rescued the last of their neighbors' horses, the inferno was burning on both sides of the road.
"Everyone that I knew got their animals out, but it was definitely an eye-opener that we were not super prepared," said Friedrich, president of Yorba Linda Country Riders. "That prompted a lot of people to think, 'Holy moly, we don't have a plan.'"
That year,, based in San Juan Capistrano. For the last 15 years, its trained volunteers — including Friedrich, who joined in 2009 — have evacuated horses and livestock from wildfires all over the county.
