Moving 50 horses and mules on any given day is a Herculean task. Rushing to move them to safety while a deadly wildfire is bearing down is nothing short of miraculous.

Horse trainer Tami Thompson said at first she didn’t know how she was going to do it. But when Thursday’s evacuation warning included her Gilroy ranch, she didn’t wait around. Her place had already become a makeshift evacuation center for horses and mules that evacuees were forced to leave behind when they fled wildfires in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and now she was in the same perilous situation.

She put out desperate calls on social media and group texts, and a community of ranchers and horse-riders rallied to her aid. They worked into the night, and streams of trailers ferried Thompson’s 30 horses and a zoo of refugees to a friend’s ranch in Morgan Hill.

“We had a whole convoy going up and down Gilroy,” she said. “People we didn’t even know showed up with horse trailers and said, ‘how can we help?’”

Thompson and her animals are safe for now. But across the Bay Area, when the massive CZU, LNU and SCU complex fires threatened farms and ranches stretching from Santa Cruz to Lake counties and hundreds of communities in between, the thousands of human evacuees were joined by horses, livestock and pets who also had nowhere to go.

Animal care services are stretched thin settling them in shelters and converted arenas, and ranchers and rescue groups have pitched in to take in as many animals as they can.

For Thompson, it’s been a whirlwind racing from ranch to ranch as the wildfires spread. On Wednesday last week, just a day before she had to pull out of Gilroy, she drove into the thick of the fire to rescue the mules in Boulder Creek. When she got there, the flames were a mile away from the evacuated house.

“It was super surreal, super apocalyptic,” she said. “The (animals) are super resilient.”

Thompson and her fellow ranchers know how hard it is to move farm animals quickly — many horse owners don’t own trailers and rent when they need them, she said. With the fires still burning, they’re especially worried about animals being left behind.

“It just takes longer to move livestock,” said Beth Killough, who owns the Take a Chance ranch in Morgan Hill ranch playing host to Thompson’s horses and other rescued animals. “We can’t just jump in the Honda and go.”

Further up the coast, in San Mateo County, Buffy Martin-Tarbox, spokesperson for the Peninsula Humane Society & SPCA, said their volunteers have been working overtime. Their shelter in Coyote Point has taken in 80 pets whose owners couldn’t take them to hotels or temporary housing, and they’ve helped convert Daly City’s Cow Palace arena into a shelter for over 200 evacuated livestock.

“Our volunteers, when a large vehicle shows up they get excited,” she said. “Just last night several herds of sheep came in.”

Pets and livestock aside, Martin-Tarbox is also worried about the impact the wildfires have had on local wildlife. She urged residents to be compassionate if any animals ended up in their neighborhoods.

“We’ve been encouraging people that live in San Mateo County, be prepared for wildlife that are fleeing the fire to come onto your yards,” she said. “Their homes are on fire, they’re going to need clean water, a place to rest, possibly some food.”

In Morgan Hill, Thompson and Killough have settled into a routine caring for the animals at the ranch. The skies were completely gray over the weekend, and the smoke gave their horses coughs and irritated eyes.

“We heard from vets this morning… they were saying that, because of the air quality, we shouldn’t even ride the horses for four weeks,” Thompson said.

With the SCU fire bearing down on them from rural areas just outside San Jose and Gilroy, and the CZU fire to the northwest, Thompson and Killough are also nervous about being forced to evacuate again. On Friday, they watched anxiously as aircraft flew overhead to douse a series of small fires that sparked in the hills just north. Killough put out another call for evacuation help, just in case.

“I’m still not comfortable with the fact that this is continuing to come in this direction,” she said. “I think all of us in Morgan Hill are concerned and watching.”

The horses, for their part, have taken everything in stride. And Betty, one of the mules from Boulder Creek, grazed idly in one of Killough’s hastily constructed pens on Monday, looking none the worse for wear after her two evacuations across the South Bay.

“The animals make it work,” said Killough. “It’s a great lesson for us.”