Black Mouth Cur mix Golden Corral spent his time in foster care moving between playtime with the resident dog and the quieter routines of a home. The 1-year-old dog learned to walk on a leash and respond to basic commands.
Diamond, a 1-year-old American bulldog, followed her foster family from room to room, spending her days playing fetch before settling down inside.
But both dogs’ time outside of the shelter was temporary.
Courtesy: Alachua County Animal Resources
| 
Courtesy: Alachua County Animal Resources
|
Volunteers fostered 89 animals through Alachua County Animal Resources as wildfires blazed in Gainesville this spring. Eighty-seven found permanent homes. Golden Corral and Diamond are still waiting.
Federal and state laws mandate protections for shelter animals during disasters, offering a crucial safety net as wildfires become more damaging and frequent in Florida. Evacuation protocols rely on volunteers to foster the pets and, often, the bond persists even after flames subside.
On April 15, clouds of gray smoke blanketed Gainesville’s sky and suffocated its air. The State Road 26 fire ravaged over 400 acres of Alachua County’s dry vegetation. As conditions worsened, local animal shelters called on the community for help, just a day before the county issued a state of emergency.
Franziska Raeber, the director of development at the Humane Society of North Central Florida, remembers evacuation day clearly.
People immediately began showing up to the Humane Society after it posted on its internal foster pages and social media. The line stretched outside the shelter’s door. Just over 90 minutes later, staff placed all 40 dogs and 18 cats in 58 homes.
“That was just overwhelming for us to see how quick our community actually sprung into action and helped us evacuate those animals,” Raeber said.
Foster families were especially important to the Humane Society during the evacuation, as it took a week and a half for smoke to dissipate from the shelter’s compound.
But fosters are also important in non-emergency situations. About 75% of all animals currently or ever in the shelter’s care reside in foster homes, many of them with UF students, Raeber said.
Soon after the Humane Society’s evacuation, staff sent interested foster parents to the Alachua County Animal Resources, said Skye Barkley, its foster coordinator. Just as they had at the Humane Society, residents queued in cars outside. Eighty-nine animals were placed in foster homes just after midnight.
Isabella Antonia Hulse was one of the residents who answered the call. Originally from Ocala, the 22-year-old dog groomer and trainer was visiting a friend in Gainesville when she saw a Facebook post requesting assistance.
As a longtime animal caregiver who had handled hospice cases, stray litters and emergency rescues, Hulse didn’t hesitate to foster during the wildfires. She arrived within 30 minutes of the post and left with a hound mix named Karen.
It would not be long before Hulse renamed the anxiously attached pup “Ever,” a nod to Katniss Everdeen, the flame-wielding heroine of “The Hunger Games” who becomes known for her fiery image. “She almost caught fire,” Hulse said.
As Hulse got to know the dog, who Hulse believed had been born feral outdoors, she noticed how frightened Ever was. Ever often barked out of fear, a behavior Hulse said can be misconstrued as aggression and put fearful dogs at risk of being deemed unadoptable.
“I can’t imagine how that would have affected her if she was already such a fearful dog,” Hulse said. “Then in emergency situations, if she wasn’t placed…that could have affected her and her future.”
Foster homes are central to the way many animal shelters operate, especially during emergencies, said Dr. Lawrence Garcia, a clinical assistant professor in shelter medicine and surgery at the UF College of Veterinary Medicine and an executive board member at the Humane Society of North Central Florida.
Garcia has led major disaster response deployments, setting up field hospitals following Hurricane Irma in Key West and Hurricane Ian in Fort Myers. Although wildfires pose a different set of challenges than hurricanes do, particularly when it comes to mobilization, both responses have roots in the federal 2006 Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act, he said. Passed after many pet owners refused to leave their homes during Hurricane Katrina, the act requires state and local emergency plans to accommodate household pets during natural disasters in order to qualify for FEMA funding.
Florida dedicates an entire emergency management role, Emergency Support Function (ESF) 17, to animal issues during disasters.
When pets are evacuated, their health can also be at risk. Smoke inhalation can affect pets as it does humans, but in some cases, animals’ closer proximity to the ground can potentially reduce impact, Garcia said. Local shelter staff moved pets into foster homes before the smoke became toxic, and there were not any widespread smoke inhalation reports in local hospitals he was aware of, he said.
“Fostering is kind of the lifeblood of a lot of the positive outcomes that we’re seeing in shelter medicine,” Garcia said. “People realize, if you’ve got the space, you’ve got the room…you could change its life.”
For some animals, the temporary placement during the wildfire became permanent.
The Humane Society had three wildfire “foster failures,” a term used in animal rescue when a foster parent decides to permanently adopt the animal they were caring for. The organization had three additional adoptions following publicity and increased web traffic during the blaze and subsequent news coverage, Raeber said.
Among those adoptions were Barbie and Skipper, a bonded pair of sister puppies, and Niles, an older dog whose new family now travels full-time in an RV.
Alachua County Animal Resources had 22 wildfire “foster failures,” plus 12 dogs adopted shortly afterward through word of mouth.
Florida’s typical wildfire season runs from January to May, though foresters warn a blaze can start at any moment. As they have done in the past, shelter staff will spring into action when one does.
Until then, Golden Corral and Diamond will continue awaiting their forever families.