MALIBU, Calif. _ As the Woolsey fire marched closer and closer to Zuma Beach on Friday, evacuees gathered under a pall of smoke and ash. Their horses, dogs, ponies and other pets crowded the sand.
When Talley Hutcherson was ordered to evacuate her Old Agoura home earlier that morning, she didn't have enough time to properly transport her horses.
"There was just no time to do anything," said Hutcherson, 57, the owner of Connemara Ranch in Malibu. "Within hours we had to make the decision to come to the beach because the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) was shut down."
Hutcherson brought four of her horses down to beach, then drove to a second location to gather another six. She abandoned her car there and rode the horses to the beach with a help of a friend. When she went back to get her car, flames danced 100 yards away.
"This is definitely the worst fire I've been through and I've lived here almost 40 years," she said. "It was pretty intense."
As sirens blared nearby, people had set up chairs and waited. The water nearby was barely visible as a cloud of smoke settled over the waves.
"We spent the day at the beach. Got to look at it through a different perspective," said Doug Randall, 57.
Carol McNamara, a resident of Malibu, waited to evacuate her home on Busch Drive until she saw flames Friday morning.
"This is heart breaking _ it doesn't look good," she said as she and her husband waited at the Zuma Beach evacuation center. The couple feared the worst for the Redwood home they built 40 years ago.
"It's so overwhelming," McNamara said. "You have 40 years of stuff _ photos, child memories. You have to start over. It gives you the feeling of despair and you have no control. There is no way I'm prepared if my house is burned to the ground. Are you resilient? This is a breakdown situation. We think we have control, but not over this beast," she said.
McNamara coughed as ash rained down on the beach.
"We have had fires before but never like this," she said.
