Coordinating her first evacuation with the best possible outcome taught California-based reined cow horse trainer Sarah Clifford valuable lessons.| Photo: Courtesy Sarah Clifford

On the morning of Friday, Aug. 21, reined cow horse trainer Sarah Clifford sent her customers an email stating they probably wouldn’t need to evacuate from the wildfires sparking throughout Northern California. But wildfires are fast and unpredictable, and the next day she evacuated 25 horses and a burro from her facility in Carmel Valley.

Throughout the week, Clifford talked to Cal Fire workers and watched the River and Carmel fires closely. The Carmel Fire posed the most direct threat, though the wind was blowing east, away from her barn. The weather forecast called for a storm to develop in Southern California and head north, however, bringing with it lightning and westerly winds.

“I could see that farther up the valley they were systematically evacuating, so I decided to put together a plan,” said Clifford, who hasn’t had to evacuate in the 13 years she has been at her current location. “Almost all my customers have their own trailers, and these are show horses that travel all the time anyway. I just put together a list and said, ‘These are the horses, and these are the trailers they go in. This is where we’re going. If I make the call and I send out this group text, we’ve got to go