When the Wind Turns Dangerous:

Napa CART Builds a More Prepared, More Resilient Community

By Kathleen Reynolds

When the wind roared across her property at 80 miles per hour during the 2017 wildfires, veterinarian Claudia Sonder, DVM, faced a moment she’ll never forget.

“The 2017 wildfires were terrifying to me,” she says. “The wind was coming through my property at 80 mph, and I had to load up my animals under those conditions. The animals were scared; I was scared; it was difficult not to panic.”

But the impetus for Napa’s Community Animal Response Team, known as Napa CART, came two years earlier, after a devastating 2015 wind‑driven fire in Lake County revealed just how vulnerable animals were during fast‑moving disasters.

“The number of animals that were left behind and lost was too much for me to bear as a veterinarian,” says Claudia, now president of Napa CART. “I thought that we’ve got to come up with a way to get people prepared and try to set up some systems for these animals in wind-driven fires. The North County Animal Disaster Group, a Butte County CART, worked on that fire, and they were so organized, efficient and prepared. I thought we needed to recreate that. We trained with them the following year.”

Today, Napa CART is a volunteer‑led nonprofit that works alongside County agencies to protect animals during emergencies, accidents and natural disasters. Over multiple fire events, the team has evacuated roughly 1,000 animals and coordinated care for another 1,000 who sheltered in place. Activation comes through the Napa County Sheriff’s Office, the Emergency Operations Center or law enforcement and fire personnel who request assistance.

“When we get activated by the County, we publish a telephone hotline for the public and that hotline goes out through the County PIO, through social media, the radio and other channels. We don’t publish the number in between disasters, because we’re unable to handle calls when we’re not activated.”

Claudia notes that CART has grown beyond Napa. “There are now about 22 CARTS across the state,” she says. They recently gathered for the sixth annual Cal CART Summit, bringing teams from across California together for cross‑training and shared learning.

Her own introduction to the concept came years earlier. “In 2013, I was the Director of the Center of Equine Health at UC Davis, and I did a piece on disaster preparedness,” she says. “That’s when I first learned about a CART. CART is actually a FEMA-recognized acronym for a community animal response team.”

After the 2015 Valley Fire, Napa County’s Emergency Operations Manager was ready to tackle the animal‑evacuation gap. CART volunteers committed to completing CERT training, along with fire‑line safety and all‑hazards instruction; rigorous preparation that helped build trust with county officials. “We do everything we can do to keep our people safe because human safety is our number one priority,” Claudia says.

Sustaining a Lifeline

For all its success, Claudia is candid about the biggest challenge: long-term sustainability. “Because disasters are intermittent, we have to keep our volunteers trained and engaged,” she says. “It’s been five or six years since we had a disaster here. We’re privately funded and don’t receive any type of government or state funding.”

Still, community support has been strong. Donors have provided trailers, equipment and pre‑set shelter locations. Partnerships with large facilities, including Napa Valley College, help ensure the team can scale quickly when needed. “In many ways, we’re doing really well,” Claudia says. “It’s just looking at the long-term sustainability, keeping our volunteers engaged and keeping them feeling useful.”

Why People Join

Claudia encourages residents to consider volunteering for reasons that go beyond disaster response. CART training strengthens personal preparedness and teaches practical animal‑care skills, from nutrition to basic assessments to knowing when to consult a veterinarian. “We have so many positions within CART, many of which are administrative support or at-home support,” she says. “We encourage folks any age over 18, if you want to help us, reach out, we will likely have a job for you.”

This year, CART is piloting a new community‑engagement model: giving animals hands‑on evacuation experience while simultaneously training volunteers. At Connolly

Ranch, volunteers will soon practice handling multiple species, while the animals themselves learn to tolerate assessment and transport.

Recent domestic pet training included triage, safe vehicle‑to‑crate handling, behavioral observations and logging animals into the intake system. The goal is simple: reduce fear and confusion to the animals during a real emergency. Crates become familiar, not frightening.

The Power of a Plan

If Claudia could change one thing about how people prepare, it would be to practice.

“The biggest mistake people make is not having a plan and practicing it ahead of time,” she says. “In the moment, most of us lose our ability to make good decisions. Adrenaline sets in and people grab whatever is near the door and they aren’t considering all the ripple effect of what’s about to happen. If you made that plan ahead of time, you could cover a lot of bases. Even taking one hour on a Sunday with your family and thinking about where to meet, how to contact each other and what will happen with the animals. Doing that ahead of time can make the difference between life and death.”

“We’re going to save more animals through education than we ever will through evacuation,” Claudia says.

She encourages families to create a Red Flag routine; for example, catching animals early, hitching trailers, facing your truck to the road, having food and supplies in the back of the truck, even loading animals briefly and giving them a treat so they associate the experience with something positive. The same goes for domestic pets and carriers: “Put something delicious in the crate weekly and eventually, the cat or dog is going to associate that carrier with a good experience versus a trip to see the veterinarian.”

CART is Clear About its Role

“Depending on the nature of the disaster and where the County sends us, we may not be able to get to everybody,” Claudia says. “We don’t want folks to consider us their number one plan; we want Napa CART to be their backup plan. We want them to consider what will happen if they’re not home and can’t get home to their animals.”

Above all, human safety comes first. “It’s important that people understand that our County is doing everything it can to make sure humans are the first priority and Napa CART honors that,” she says. “It takes some time for our first responders and law enforcement to stabilize the situation so it’s safe enough for our team to go after animals.”

Hope in the Ashes

For Claudia, the heart of the work is reunification. “I’ve seen people who have lost everything, but their chickens are still alive, and they come home to their property and break down in tears because their pets made it,” she says. “It gives them hope.”

In a region shaped by wildfire, that hope matters. “It’s a big part of community resilience; preserving the human-animal bond helps people to recover. It helps communities recover and to watch it makes it all worthwhile.”