AVERY COOPER: In Spokane, around 60,000 people have been evacuated – fleeing several fires. But they're not the only ones. Animals too have had to leave their homes. N-W-P-B’s Senior Correspondent Anna King is in Spokane, and has our story.

  
ANNA KING: Bubbles is upset. 

He’s a handsome, tall black-brown horse.

He’s got a white star, and a snip on his nose.
 
Horses often talk to each other when they’re upset or confused. 
Bubbles has been a bit off his feed and water. 

He’s not used to being stalled. 

Here at the Spokane Fair and Expo Center, dozens of horses, a donkey and even an emu are taking reprieve from the fire. They’ve been evacuated here by their families, friends and neighbors. 

Lu Hill: “I definitely knew that Bubbles would get on a trailer no problem. He’s a good boy.” 

KING: That’s Lu Hill. 
She’s 46. She lives in West Spokane. Works for a non-profit in town. And Hill boards Bubbles and her other horse up north. Right where several fires came.  
She said she just had to trust that the ranch owners would get her horses trailered out. 
In emergencies people write phone numbers on horses’ coats.
Lu Hill: “He was scared though. And anytime there’s phone numbers written on your horse there is a new sense of fear. It definitely makes you want to lean into let’s be safe rather than sorry. The idea of letting my horse go, and hoping I find them again is the most devastating feeling you can imagine.” 

KING: She says she has a close relationship with her horses. 
Lu Hill: “You can feel that they are scared too. And they know something’s coming. They have just as much urgency to be safe.” 

KING: The people here are stressed too. Many were helping to clean stalls. 
Twelve year old Justin, sweeps up an empty stall. He has a toothy grin and curly blond mop. He sports a blue shirt with a massive baseball emblazoned on it. 
His grandmother and grandfather’s home burned up in the Old Trails fire. 
Justin: “By the time they got the Level 3 evacuation, ashes were falling on their cars. Luckily they got both their cars, and everything important and they got out safely.” 
 
KING: And his own family had to also evacuate the Fairview fire. He managed to save his baseball, football and basketball cards. 
Justin: “Yeah, it was pretty scary.”
King: “What do you remember about all that, when you had to leave, what did your mama say?”
Justin: “She just said pack everything you could, what was important to you. Stuff that can’t be replaced. So I just grabbed everything that was important. And within 15 minutes a police showed up and said ‘You gotta go.’ So we left.”

KING: Justin is sad, and a bit stressed. Pretty much everyone around him is. 

Anna King: “Pretty tough.”
Justin: “Yah. In the moment it was scary, but we were lucky that everyone got out alive.”

KING: He says most everyone is gonna recoup their lives – eventually.

In Spokane, Washington, I’m Anna King.