A post submitted by CGI member Leathur.

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By Andy Corbley - Jul 31, 2023

As town after town in Canada receive evacuation orders, one man from the town of Yellowknife drove toward the fires: on a mission to rescue any pets left behind.

Square in the fire’s path was the town of Behchokǫ, in the country’s province called the Northwest Territories, and when it received an evacuation order Jason Card drove to the nearby SPCA, loaded up his truck with dog crates, and headed off for the fire zone.

Onboard were his teenage child and 80-year-old stepfather. They drove the 63 miles from the city of Yellowknife up the highway to Behchokǫ where they found people in the midst of evacuation. By 8:00 pm they had a truck filled with pets.

“Literally as soon as we got into town and people heard that we were rescuing dogs, we had people coming up to us asking us to get the dogs and if we had room. We filled every kennel that we had,” Mr. Card told national news.

Despite being after dark, they unloaded the crates of mostly dogs, turned around, and went straight back to Behchokǫ, this time returning to Yellowknife at 5:00 am.

Dr. Michelle Tuma, with Vets Without Borders Canada in Yellowknife, heard what Card was doing, and got in touch in order to try and find temporary accommodation for the animals in Yellowknife whilst their owners safely evacuated.

Meanwhile, after a few hours of sleep, the trio of rescuers headed out yet again, only to find the highway closed. While planning to see how many dogs they could fit on a plane, they heard the highway was reopening and so carried on rescuing like before, saving more than 30 dogs and some cats as well.

CONTINUE READING: https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/man-heads-into-wildfire-to-rescue-dozens-of-pets-after-northwest-territories-evacuation-i-didnt-want-them-to-be-forgotten/