Railroad Fire<\/a>, according to the Florida Forest Service.<\/p>\nFor families living near the flames, evacuation can be especially challenging, particularly for those with livestock.<\/p>\n
Lauren Smith, whose lived in Clay County for five years, said thick smoke quickly filled the area around her home.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe smoke is pretty thick; you probably can\u2019t see more than 20 feet in front of you,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n
Smith owns three horses, including one with a respiratory condition called heaves, which makes breathing in smoke especially dangerous.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very important that he doesn\u2019t breathe in any of this, especially the thick smoke, because it will irritate the lungs,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n
Rather than wait, Smith loaded her horses and relocated them to a friend\u2019s farm in St. Augustine. Along with the horses, she also had to evacuate her cats, dog, and five-month-old baby.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to be proactive instead of reacting,\u201d Smith said. \u201cWe wanted to be safer than sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n
For families who do not have somewhere to take their animals, the Jacksonville Equestrian Center is opening more than 400 stalls to evacuees.<\/p>\n
Carolyn LaRose, vice chairman of the North Florida Equestrian Society, said the center has already started receiving calls from worried animal owners.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re terrified. It\u2019s hard, horses are large animals,\u201d LaRose said. \u201cSome people don\u2019t even have horse trailers, and they\u2019re scared they\u2019re gonna lose their home, their barn, and on top of it, lose the animals that are so important to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
LaRose said the facility can take horses and other livestock for $25 per stall, which covers cleaning and bedding. Animals can remain at the facility as long as needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had to evacuate for a fire a couple of years ago with my farm, and it is absolutely terrifying,\u201d LaRose said. \u201cWhatever we need to do for our community, however many horses and livestock we can take, we\u2019re here for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anyone needing to evacuate animals to the Jacksonville Equestrian Center is encouraged to call Heather Venter (727-560-4844), Carolyn LeRose (904-226-8483), or Rocco Frakes (904-226-4000)\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A wildfire spanning Clay and Putnam counties is prompting evacuations, including for those with livestock. The Jacksonville Equestrian…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":741998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,3188,723,7310,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-741997","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fl","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-jacksonville","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-united-states-of-america","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116440077889452520","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=741997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/741998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=741997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=741997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=741997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}