Over the last few years, it seems like every summer season across the globe has been hit with record-breaking fires. Devastating more than just homes and businesses, these fires displace people in unprecedented numbers, but people aren’t the only ones under threat of fire. Animals suffer too, and possibly more than the rest of us.

Thankfully, though, there are heroes willing to put their lives on the line for our animal friends.

A couple of years ago in 2018, one of these fires threatened and even substantially burned the small Viking town of Vacaville, California.

A long, blazing wall of flames known as The Nelson Fires was rapidly reaching its way into town in August, and they were headed right for the Solano County SPCA nestled in a quiet, 5-acre lot of the town. At a moment’s notice, all of the SPCA staff and volunteers were racing against the clock to save the 67 helpless animals they had boarded there at the time.

Thankfully, the Vacaville Police Department stepped up to the line of fire, literally, to help rescue the animals.

Officer Carly Stone was on the frontlines and managed to capture the suspenseful rescue mission on her body-cam. The footage shows her and quick glimpses of others racing into the SPCA to pull kennels and cages from the shelter to be loaded onto trucks and driven to safety.

Once the animals in carriers were pulled, they went back in for the dogs in the kennels.

You can see as Officer Stone loops the shelter’s slip-leashes around the dogs’ necks to lead them out of the building.

After the trucks had been loaded, there was nowhere left to put the dogs but in her patrol car.

“We’re finally starting to make a good dent in the amount of animals that we’re getting out. And there’s one little tan dog that I see back there. He was a little skittish at first. I scoop him up and go running out to my car,” Officer Stone says in an interview with The Dodo.

“I had nowhere to put the dogs, they seemed to be happy to be with me, so we just went to work and started evacuating houses for a few hours until I could get them back into the SPCA,” she said in a separate interview with ABC News 7.

Officer Stone and her team, along with SPCA staff and volunteers, were able to successfully pull all 67 animals from the shelter.

Flooded with relief that they were able to rescue all of the shelter animals, Officer Stone readied herself to drive away and suddenly remembered something. She wasn’t done. She still had to help evacuate homes in the surrounding area.

“I’m driving away from the SPCA, and it’s this crazy mix of panic, but also relief. Then I remember ‘Wait! We still gotta go evacuate houses right now!’ And I’ve still got these three dogs in the car with me. ‘Guess you guys are just gonna come to work with me for a little bit,’” she recalls.

What came next touched Officer Stone deeply. The tan dog reached out his paw to thank her.

“I’m sitting there, looking up something on my computer, and the little tan dog in my front seat wags his tail and puts his one paw on my hand,” she rembers.

That got her attention. Officer Stone couldn’t help but to take a moment to pay some attention to the grateful pup.

“You’re kinda cute…yeah,” she cooed at the tiny dog.

When times got hard for the animals, the community stepped up.

All of the rescues from the Solano County SPCA were then taken to a meeting place, where members of the community were waiting to receive them. Every single one of the animals found fosters or room within neighboring shelters.

There’s no question that the Vacaville PD, SPCA staff, volunteers, and foster families were all heroes. The fire scorched over 2 acres and came dangerously close to reaching the shelter before the firefighters were able to get it contained.

What was an unquestionable disaster for the community turned out to have a beautiful silver-lining for the Solano County SPCA shelter animals. Not only were they saved from the fires, but 12 of them were also adopted.

Officer Stone went back to adopt one herself, and there was a particular four-footed furry friend she had in mind.

“My wife told me that when I came home from work, I kept talking about this cute little tan dog that was in the front seat with me. So my wife and I decided to adopt him. I walked back to go see him, and he got all excited and started barking when he saw me and became really animated,” Officer Stone describes picking up the tan pup to adopt him.

When she got him home, they named him Sean. He’s proven to be just as awesome as Officer Stone remembered.

“He’s kind of like a cat-dog, actually. He’s super cuddly when he wants to be. He loves to sleep on my pillow. He’s got three dog beds and couches and everything else, but he always wants to sleep on mypillow,” she says.

Call it what you want, but it seems these two were destined to be together. To learn more about this incredible story and to see the full interview with Officer Stone and the intense footage from her body-cam, watch the video below.

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Source: The Dodo/Vacaville Police Department/Solano County SPCA