title: Wildfire evacuation: outrunning the witch's curse--one animal center's experience.
abstract: When the Witch Creek Fire began ravaging San Diego County, California, in October 2007 there was no way of knowing how far it would spread, how many homes it would destroy, how many families would be evacuated, or how many lives would be lost. There wasn't going to be any trail of bread crumbs to lead us out of the burning forest and safely back home. We weren't going to wake up and realize that it was a bad dream. This Witch was real and was devouring everything in her path. There might not be a home for us to return to.
authors.affiliation: Helen Woodward Animal Center, PO Box 64, Rancho Santa Fe, CA 92067, USA.
authors.forename: Michael M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Arms
authors.forename: John D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Van Zante
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000830:Animals, Laboratory; D002140:California; D004189:Disaster Planning / Q000379:methods*; D005390:Fires; D018635:Rescue Work