Double S Horse Ranch in Fresno Co. housing 500 animals displaced by Creek Fire

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- A local horse ranch is opening its gates to livestock displaced by the Creek Fire, but now they need the community's help.

Five hundred animals are temporarily calling the Double S Horse Ranch home.

"Between Monday night and Tuesday we went 24 hours without sleep just taking in animals," said Derrick Simpson, owner of the Double S Horse Ranch.

When the Creek Fire forced thousands of evacuees to quickly flee their homes, many turned to the ranch to bring animals in, sometimes by the dozen.

"Our big arena up here, we've got close to 30 animals in that," said Simpson. "One place needed to be evacuated, they had that many animals, so we put them all together."

Stalls are filling up fast.

"We'll be setting up more as needed," said Simpson. "When we get down to 10 pens, we're going to start setting up the next set of panels."

One week later, they're still welcoming animals and running out of supplies fast.

"We're probably going through a stack a day which a stack is about 80 bales roughly," said Simpson.

Volunteers are pitching in, with roughly 70 on hand at a time.

"This is not a short deal, this is going to be here for a long time," said Simpson. "Many of these people who got evacuated they could not have homes to take their animals back to."

They've set up a gofundme page and are asking the community for cash donations and supplies.

"We're in it for the long haul. We're not going to say in two weeks ,the fires out you need to go, so if they need to be here, they can be here," said Simpson. "We want to make sure we have enough to last them through a couple of months."

You can drop off donations at the Double S Horse Ranch in Clovis at 15150 Tollhouse Rd Clovis, CA 93619. You can also donate at their GoFundMe.