A man who has been working to save animals from the Summerland, B.C., wildfire evacuation zone has now been told he can no longer continue his work due to breaking the rules.
Animal rescuer Kazimir Nowlin has been working since Friday to get animals and livestock to safety and away from the danger of the massive Bald Range fire.
“I was fixing a stable in Falkland to get a stallion that we had rescued off the reserve there, we’d finished that up, and then we heard about the Summerland fire starting up, so we just jumped in our vehicles,” he said about Friday evening when the Bald Range wildfire sparked.
“As soon as we got here, we had four horses evacuated right where the fire was. We brought them out to Oliver, jumped back in, we grabbed three or four more horses, grabbed them, took them up to OK Falls, I believe.”
Carolyn Dobler, a rancher from Stonewall Ranch, said Nowlin and his team rescued all of his animals.
“I finally got everybody here in one place last night, and went home and had a good cry and was so grateful,” she told Global News.
Nowlin said they continued to rescue animals where they were needed, but then they were told they needed permits to go into the evacuated areas.
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He said he was told to join up with the Animal Lifeline Emergency Response Team (ALERT), who help rescue and evacuate animals and livestock during disasters.
However, he said he was told on Tuesday night that he could no longer work with ALERT as he was violating their rules of filming the animals and homes inside evacuation zones and posting the content on social media.
“Where is the counselling? Where is the support? Where is all of that?” Daryl Meyers with ALERT said.
“If someone is sitting at home and sees it on social media, and they have a complete and utter breakdown, meltdown.”
The president of the regional ALERT said that is why protocols are in place and Nowlin broke the rules by going into so-called Red Zones and recording video.
“He went rogue on us,” Meyers said.
“We had a complaint from the RCMP, and the RCMP asked us to have him stand down
“If we break the rules, we’ll get kicked out, and the last thing people need is for us to get kicked out.”
Nowlin said he is now moving on.
“It was disheartening because, I mean, we were doing what needed to be done, which they refuse to do,” he said.
“The leadership here — and I want to express, I am not against ALERT; I fully respect and love what they do — the leadership here is not any good. The leadership here is refusing to take horses that we can take out and put into a sanctuary that’s all set up for them, but she’s telling people that we’re not prepared to do that, and that is absolute crap.”
Nowlin said he applied for his own permit on Saturday, but he has not yet received a call.
He said there is too much red tape.
He sounds like a complete moron.
so disappointing… ALERT has a help line only open 9:30 AM -5PM… for an emergency evacuation team they weren’t prepared for what they were supposed to do… no one could contact them or was hearing back from their team… I don’t blame someone for taking action to help get animals out. Thank you Kaz for getting all our horses and goats out and to safety.
Also… maybe he shouldn’t have posted but… no one whose home is burnt down will be “sitting at their home seeing it on social media” and needing immediate counselling. That is a cop out response with no logic. They are not at home unaware of what is happening; they are staying wherever they can right now, anxiously awaiting updates and obviously hoping to hear any news on their homes.
I think what he did was showing his love for animals.
This man probably did things maybe he should not have done but I think I would have done the same thing. Humans caused a lot of these fires and if he was stepping up to help innocent animals then I call him my hero!! Many blessings to him!!
His permit will probably be issued in October.
There comes a time for rules and also a time for NO rules, just do what COMMON SENCES tells you to do
This is so bloody typical, I hate the way this Province has evolved. This man is doing everything he can to help, let him be.
lol get the anti science bigot to produce the rcmp report, god u guys are slanted in your reporting if animals die because of your failure to put the truth out you are all responsible