When Fernando Lopez Sr. watched live footage of wildfires raging in Southern California last week, he immediately thought of horses.
The 47-year-old is the general manager of the Pico Rivera Sports Arena, a rodeo ring next to the San Gabriel River that has been a mecca for Mexico’s horse culture for decades. The Lopez family, which owns nightclubs and restaurants and promotes concerts throughout Southern California, has flocked to the 6,000-seat outdoor facility to watch Stetson-wearing charro shows and singers riding horses. We owe it to the American Dream of generations of Latinos. , jeans and boots.
“We are horse people,” he told me recently. “And horse people help each other.”
Lopez tried to drive a livestock trailer from his home in Tarzana to Sylmar as the Hearst Fire raged, but was told all roads were closed. He then called Pico Rivera City Manager Steve Carmona and suggested opening the sports arena for people who needed to evacuate large animals.
His cousin, Lalo Lopez, announced the news on social media and local media, and got politicians like Los Angeles City Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez to spread the word. Fernando’s son, Fernando Jr., received calls from frantic horse owners. They soon began sending their four-hooved friends to the sports arena, including a pot-bellied pig named Elle.
Horse shrines serve as sanctuaries for horses.
“Imagine your horse is trapped and you’re going to go rescue him no matter what,” Fernando Sr. said. “And imagine you don’t have anywhere else to put it. You have to find somewhere safe.”
We were standing outside the entrance to the sports arena. Banners for upcoming shows were displayed on the walls. Saturday will be a benefit concert for fire victims and a farewell party for Mexican firefighters who helped in the Pacific Palisades. More fundraising efforts are underway.
Because wildfires tend to burn in horse country, horses are evacuated almost every time a wildfire breaks out in Southern California. This time, major fires broke out in Malibu, Altadena, and Sylmar, turning it into a Dunkirk for horses.
Pierce College’s Equestrian Center and Hansen Dam Horse Park, which each hold up to 200 horses, filled up quickly. Horse owners from the Inland Empire to Compton to Los Angeles County’s seven equestrian districts drove to the affected areas to open their properties and assist in rescue efforts.
Those places were used to providing assistance during disasters. Sports Center was not.
“I brought the horses from Malibu during the 2018 fires,” said Fernando Sr., 47. “But this horse…” he said after him.
“I was in South Central during the 1992 riots, and I was in Northridge during the 1992 riots. [1994] Lalo, 52, said. “What we saw this time is beyond words.”
Aerial view of Pico Rivera Sports Arena.
(Myung Jae-chun/Los Angeles Times)
Mr. Fernando Jr., Mr. Carmona and Pico Rivera Mayor John Garcia also accompanied him. The city is coordinating donations to help feed and treat the evacuated horses. Thirty people have participated so far, with eight remaining.
“The last thing the victims want to worry about is the animals. They’re like family to them,” said Carmona, who has been Pico Rivera’s city manager since 2019. People know and trust the sports arena and appreciate us opening our doors. ”
“Their hearts are in the right place to want to help,” added Garcia, the Pico Rivera mayor. “It’s important to help, because you never know when misfortune will strike. If we can give victims a glimmer of hope, we’ve done our job.”
This is not the first time Los Lopez has used a sports arena for a non-entertainment stage. During the pandemic, they turned it into a coronavirus testing station and supply receiving area. When Los Angeles officials removed street vendors from the popular night market on 26th Street in Lincoln Heights in 2021, the sports arena provided them with parking. The market has been booming ever since.
Fernando Sr. made 600 burritos for the Los Angeles Fire Department’s 87th Precinct crew in Granada Hills at El Mariachi Restaurant in Encino. “My mother used to take us to church from an early age, and afterwards she would always say, ‘Bengan Ayudhar,’” he says.
Please come help me.
Her father, Leonardo, came to the United States in the 1960s with his four brothers from La Noria, Durango, where he worked as a bracero and dishwasher before opening a chain of nightclubs that bore his name. The family took over operations of the sports arena in 2012, and Fernando Sr. is currently president of the family’s company, La Noria Entertainment.
Lalo said his late father and uncles taught him and his cousins a simple mantra: “Siempre una mano pa’l paisano.” Always lend a hand to your compatriots. “If you’re from a ranch, that’s what we do,” he said, then went on to talk about my family’s own rural Mexican roots. “You know what that’s like.”
We walked to the livestock storage area of the sports arena. The Lopez family’s small herd of horses and steers were lounging in an open pen to make room for “their visitors,” Fernando Sr. jokingly said of the horses he evacuated. Described. Opposite them was the usual stable, with eight horses sitting next to each other. Taped to the door of each stall was a piece of paper with their date of arrival and hometown: Altadena, 1/9. Eaton, 1/10. Sylmar, 1/11.
“These people don’t feel comfortable,” Fernando Jr. said as he approached the evacuees. The 20-year-old heads La Noria Entertainment’s Charreria team. “They want to go home.”
“Check to see if your eyelids are burnt,” the father said. “And their ears, too.”
Garcia looked at the brown stallion. “What do you mean their eyes are really red?” the mayor asked out loud.
“I mean, they’re very nervous,” Fernando Jr. replied. Then he went to the pregnant mare.
“When she first came here, she didn’t go near anyone,” he said. Now she was grinding against his hand.
Hearst Fire evacuees look out from their stalls at Pico Rivera Sports Arena.
(Myung Jae-chun/Los Angeles Times)
Although workers care for the horses 24 hours a day and walk them daily, Fernando Jr. said horse owners prefer to take care of their horses themselves. Some, he says, admitted they had lost everything. Some people kept their situations secret.
Despite the unfamiliar terrain, taking the horse for a trot is a way for owners to “distract themselves from all the problems they’re going to face.”
“They don’t know where the water is. They don’t know where the food is,” Fernando Jr. said. “This is not their base, so they don’t know what’s where. It’s like asking someone to borrow your shoes.”
He examined another horse. “But owners appreciate all of this. They’ll say, ‘Can I pay you for helping me?’ But no, no. ”
El Monte resident Baltazar Almanza carried a wheelbarrow piled high with small bales of alfalfa from stall to stall. He hung them on the tack rack. The horses were eating quietly.
“It’s all very sad,” the 79-year-old said in Spanish. He has worked in sports arenas for over 20 years. “Life is tough. Don’t think it’s easy. But we’re moving forward, there’s only one thing to do.”
Fernando Sr. showed me cell phone video of the Hearst fire. In the darkness, lit only by flames, people rushed to rescue horses from the hellish place.
“You think they’re not scared? They’re not traumatized?” he said of the horses. “It’s disappointing, but I’m relieved that they’re here now. They’re just cold.”
He worries about the weeks and months ahead. During the pandemic, sports arena employees frequently discovered shed and half-starved horses roaming the San Gabriel River bed and its trails. They would take in stray horses, nurse them to health, and then hand them over to equine nonprofit organizations.
“We’re seeing people losing everything and having to give up their horses,” Fernando Sr. said. “But I can’t abandon a horse like that. I wouldn’t do that to any animal.”
We were standing next to a huge horse trailer. He looked back at his guests. “Ahora see se pone kabron.”
It has become very strict now.
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