LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Next week state officials will honor Lake County Animal Care and Control and its Lake Evacuation and Animal Protection volunteer group for their efforts to evacuate and shelter animals during the Rocky fire.

CaliforniaVolunteers, the state office that manages programs and initiatives aimed at increasing the number of Californians engaged in service and volunteering, and the Office of the Governor selected Animal Care and Control and LEAP for California’s 2015 Governor’s Volunteering and Service Award for Governmental Agency of the Year, according to spokeswoman Monica Hassan.

Hassan said the annual award will be presented in a ceremony beginning at 10 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 15, on the West Steps of the California State Capitol building in Sacramento.

The award, according to the notification Animal Care and Control received, “is intended to recognize a state, county or city agency that has demonstrated a remarkable dedication to engaging volunteers.”

Animal Care and Control Director Bill Davidson said LEAP, which operates under his department's oversight, was formed four years ago. “For the last decade and more, our first responders have increasingly run into the need for assistance with animal issues. The old idea of simply turning animals loose to fend for themselves during a disaster doesn’t work today.”

He said having a trained animal response unit available to assist in emergency situations helps everyone, and is important since many people will refuse to leave without their animals during an evacuation.

Since LEAP's founding, its volunteers have been trained in a variety of key aspects in emergency response, including the incident command system, wildland fire behavior, slack water awareness, radio protocols and advanced first aid, Davidson said.

Among the first of the group's half dozen deployments was the 2012 Wye fire, when it helped evacuate animals from Spring Valley.

Then on July 29 the Rocky fire broke out east of Lower Lake. That fire burned 69,438 acres over a two-week period.

In the video above, Lynnette Bertelli, one of the people who was key to founding LEAP, and fellow volunteer Karen Schaver speak about the animal rescue response during the Rocky fire.

Hassan said Cal Fire nominated Animal Care and Control and LEAP for the state award.

The nomination explained that the LEAP volunteers and Animal Care and Control “worked tirelessly for 120 hours with no rest” in the effort to evacuate 400 animals – both large and small.

Hassan said two creatures who were among those helped during the Rocky incident were given particular mention in the Cal Fire nomination.

They were Rupert, an Italian-speaking African gray parrot who was brought into the animal evacuation center in Lower Lake along with several other parrots while their owners got out of the fire path, and an exceptionally heavy tortoise that LEAP volunteers helped move.

“We were very impressed with them,” Hassan said of the local animal rescuers.

She said anyone can nominate an organization for the award. Nominees are then reviewed by selection committees and sent to the Office of the Governor for final review and approval.

Davidson was surprised to get the news of the award, but grateful, coming as it did in the midst of his team's response to the Valley fire, in which they once again were deployed, this time responding to requests to help some 3,400 animals.

“Although there is always room to grow and more to learn, we are now a well organized disaster response group that can and will assist our community whenever the need arises,” Davidson said.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.