An evacuee and her horse at the Oregon Horse Center.

Kellie Puckett leapt from her 4×4 Gator and greeted a family unloading their horse from a trailer.

“This way,” she said, motioning to a vacant stall.

The air was smoky. The sun glowed red.

In just the first few days of wildfire, Puckett, a manager at Oregon Horse Center, had loaded stalls with more than 100 horses from evacuated fire zones. And by the end of the fires, the center had welcomed hundreds of animals.

“I don’t know if our house will be there when we go back. It’s scary. But I’m glad we have a place for our horses,” Carly Bramhall, 15, a student at Springfield High School, told the Capital Press when the Holiday Farm Fire was still raging near her home.

Bramhall’s family had evacuated the Mohawk area and brought their horses to the center.

Donkeys brayed in a nearby stall. Farmers had also come with goats, ponies, pigs, llamas, even a bull. A constellation of groups circled around to support the center’s efforts.

Annie Fike, boarding manager at Oregon Horse Center, said numerous local businesses and organizations helped. Eugene Livestock Auction in Junction City transported hundreds of farm animals to the center. Lane County Animal Services helped orchestrate pickups. Coastal Farm & Ranch donated feed, electrolytes and water buckets. Wilco sent a hay relief truck. Smart Foodservice donated water bottles.

Gale Moser, a Lane County farmer, told the Capital Press she’s grateful the staff at Oregon Horse Center kept her evacuated horses safe.

“Don’t know what I would’ve done without them,” she said.