Julie Cassadore was stunned when the wildfire ripped through the San Carlos Apache Reservation this July. “The whole downtown was on fire,” she said. “It was just huge, huge, huge clouds of black smoke, and you could hear what sounded like propane tanks exploding. I saw people running with their children.”
That’s when the calls began.
Cassadore is San Carlos Apache and the founder of Geronimo Animal Rescue Team, a nonprofit animal care and adoption organization on the reservation. As the Watch Fire burned around 2,000 acres and destroyed 20 homes, Cassadore’s team began a long night of rescues.
“We were driving around burnt dogs with their burnt paws,” she said. “We were doing that all night.”
But San Carlos doesn’t have an animal shelter of its own, so Cassadore has worked hard the last month to find safe homes for the 20 animals rescued that night.
The Watch Fire began with arson, but high temperatures and drier conditio... Read more
