Dogs, cats, horses and chickens are on the loose around Summerland after the Bald Range fire tore through the community, but people are pitching in to get them to their rightful homes.

Website creators, animal sanctuaries and regular people with security cameras are doing what they can to get pets and farm animals back with their owners.

Lori Stewart, president of the Critteraid Animal Sanctuary, said the whole community is banding together to help find people’s pets that can go far and wide in a wildfire situation.

“We’re still at the point where they’re trying to find them all. People take pictures and they’re like ‘hey is this your cat? Is this your dog? Is this your horse?’ They are slowly coming out but it’s sad,” Stewart said.

The Okanagan Humane Society has a rescue cat that was found in Southeast Kelowna with fire retardant on its paws and it hasn’t been claimed by an owner yet.

To help streamline the process for tracking down lost pets, locals are putting reports on the Emergency Animal Registry which is a volunteer managed online database for missing and animals on the loose in Summerland and Faulder.

There are around 37 reports of missing or loose animals listed on the site and 13 reports about animals that have been reunited with their owners.

There are five horses, three piglets, four turkeys and chickens, as well as numerous cats and dogs reported missing on the site. There are also several social media groups where people are coming together to locate and return missing pets.

Kaz Nowlin has been searching for animals and evacuating them since the end of July at both the Bradley Creek wildfire and the Bald Range wildfire. He was initially working with ALERT but was taken off the team after an issue involving filming fire areas he shouldn’t have filmed.

Currently, Nowlin is trying to help people and their animals independently. He said they have been trying different methods to find pets and loose farm animals.

“We would put food and water in an area that had dust on it so we could see what kind of animal was eating,” he said. “We would do a visual search from the road into the area, calling out for the pets’ names and just tracking, you know, what animals were eating what from what location.”

He said it has been rewarding to reunite people with their animals.

“In a time of devastation, it brings hope and it brings fulfillment back to both the animal and to the owner as well,” Nowlin said.