Rebecca Sparenberg, assistant editor for Riding Magazine, tells firsthand of saving horses from the California wildfires, as well as sharing stories of the horse community, which banded together in a time of crisis.

Sunday, Oct. 21 I saw the first plumes of smoke from the Witch fire as I was returning home to Descanso Sunday afternoon. But at the time I hadn’t heard of the Witch fire, the Harris fire, or any of the others that would follow, and I wasn’t overly concerned about the smoke. I have only been in San Diego for two years, but I have already learned that fires are part of life. This wasn’t the first time I had returned home to smoke in the distance and slept with an ominous orange glow lighting the horizon