DevonWood Equestrian Center in Sherwood, Oregon, is housing more than 200 evacuated horses. | Photo: DevonWood/Facebook

Oregon is the latest state to be under siege by wildfires, as high temperatures and strong winds have fanned the flames of more than 35 active fires that have destroyed more than 5 million acres as of Thursday morning, according to the Oregon Office of Emergency Management.

The fires spread relentlessly across Western Oregon from the Cascade Mountains to the Pacific Coast, a region not accustomed to extreme wildfire activity. Horsemen and women in the area scrambled to evacuate, and emergency facilities quickly reached capacity by Tuesday, the day Governor Kate Brown declared a national emergency and said during a press briefing the fires could lead to the greatest loss of property and human lives in state history.

“Everything is so dry and windy that there’s just fires everywhere,” said Kim Mosiman of Sound Equine Options, a Gresham, Oregon, nonprofit that focuses on ending the cycle of abuse, neglect, abandonment, and suffering for horses by partnering with law enforcement agencies in Oregon and Washington. “The problem … that makes it so different from the others that we have helped on is this isn’t just a fire—it’s so many fires