When the Bald Range wildfire ripped at high speed through Summerland last week, many fleeing residents had no time to gather their pets and livestock, and were forced to leave them behind.

Six days after the devastating inferno, Faulder resident Danielle McCafferty’s beloved dog Jazzy, her kitten, and five chickens are still missing.

Despite the fact the fire wiped out her house on Princeton-Summerland Road, her only concern is finding her pets.

“I’d give anything to be reunited with them, it’s my only hope right now,” she told iNFOnews.ca.

McCafferty and her husband were in West Kelowna when the fire broke out on the evening of Aug. 7, and after receiving a concerned message from a friend, they raced home to grab their animals.

“On the way there we got in touch with a neighbour who said the police had been to my house and kicked in the door to free the pets,” she said. “The two dogs ran out and another neighbour was able to grab the little one, but couldn’t grab Jazzy. She had kids in the car, nobody had time to do anything.

“We got to within seven kilometres from our home and begged a police officer to let us past but got turned away.”

Jazzy, a senior pitbull/shar pei cross was left behind along with the kitten called Blue Moon, and the five birds in a pen.

The dog was spotted in the evacuation zone the following night by an animal rescuer in the Okanagan who called for the animal repeatedly without success.

McCafferty reached out to the Animal Lifeline Emergency Response Team, a volunteer team in the area dedicated to rescuing animals during disasters who called to inform her they couldn’t get a permit to enter the area.

She put a post on social media and has received many condolences and some photographs of dogs that are not hers, along with reports from Trout Creek area that the dog has been seen wandering around the streets.

As the Bald Range fire continues to grow, there’s no way to know when she will be allowed to return to what is left of her property and look for the animals.

“I just called the animal rescue team again for a temporary access permit and it sounds like the area is opening for livestock retrieval but not family pets,” McCafferty said.

She adopted Jazzy from a friend of hers who works up north and didn’t want the dog shuffling back and forth. The medium-sized black dog was originally rescued from China where she was used in dog fights.

Consequently, she has a very damaged, blind right eye and scars on the right side of her face and a slight limp.

She also wasn’t wearing a collar.

“Her neck is bigger than her head so the collar would always slide off,” McCafferty said. “We’d always walk with a harness. She also has a long tail unlike most dogs of her breed with cropped tails. She has a coffee table clearer.”

McCafferty’s missing kitten is roughly five months old and pure black in colour. She’s less hopeful of finding it because it has mostly been indoors and likely doesn’t have survival skills.

She is hoping the public will continue to keep their eyes out for her pets.

“If anyone sees Jazzy, she is an old, very sweet girl who will come when she is called. Just crouch down with a calm approach,” she said.

The Bald Range fire spread at an exceptionally rapid rate, growing to more than 100 square kilometres in a matter of hours. The entire town of Summerland was evacuated just after midnight along with thousands of Peachland residents and more than 400 properties in the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen.

Many residents are still unclear whether their homes, or the livestock they left behind are still intact.

“I’m trying to be patient, I know everyone is doing what they can and people’s lives are at risk, but it’d be nice to have some answers and to get in there and find our pets,” McCafferty said.

Go here to contact McCafferty if you see her pets.