As Fernando Lopez Sr. watched live footage of the wildfires raging across Southern California last week, he immediately thought of horses.
The 47-year-old is general manager of the Pico Rivera Sports Arena, the rodeo ring next to the San Gabriel River that has been a shrine to Mexican horse culture for decades. Lopez’s extended family, who run nightclubs and restaurants and promote concerts across Southern California, owe their American dream to the generations of Latinos who have flocked to the open-air, 6,000-seat facility to see charro shows and singers on horseback while dressed in Stetsons, jeans and boots.
“We’re horse people,” he told me recently. “And horse people help each other.”
Lopez tried to drive livestock trailers from his Tarzana home to Sylmar while the Hurst fire roared but was told that all roads were blocked. He then called Pico Rivera City Manager Steve Carmona to suggest opening up the Sports Arena for anyone who needed to evacuate large animals.
His cousin, Lalo Lopez, put out the news on social and local media and got politicians such as L.A. Councilmember Monica Rodriguez to spread the word. Fernando’s son, Fernando Jr., took calls from frantic horse owners, who soon began to drop off their four-hoofed friends at the Sports Arena, including a pot-bellied pig named Elle.
A shrine to horses has become a sanctuary for them.
“Imagine your horse is trapped — you’re gonna go and try to save him no matter what,” Fernando Sr. said. “And then imagine that you no longer have a place to put them in. You’re gonna look for someplace safe.”
We stood outside the Sports Arena’s entrance. Banners for upcoming shows decorated a wall. They’ll soon be joined by two more: a benefit concert for fire victims on Saturday and a going-away party for the Mexican firefighters who have helped out in Pacific Palisades. More fundraisers are in the works.
Horse evacuations happen almost every time there’s a wildfire in Southern California, because they tend to flare up in horse country. This time around, with conflagrations in Malibu, Altadena and Sylmar, it was an equine Dunkirk.
Pierce College’s equestrian center and the Hansen Dam Horse Park, which can each board up to 200 horses, quickly filled. Horse owners from the Inland Empire to Compton to L.A. County’s seven equestrian districts opened up their properties and drove to affected areas to assist in the rescue efforts.
Those places were used to helping out in disasters; the Sports Center was not.
“We brought in some horses from Malibu during the fires out there in 2018,” said Fernando Sr., 47. “But this one …” He trailed off.
“I was in South Central during the ’92 riots, and in Northridge for the [1994] earthquake,” said Lalo, 52. “What we saw this time, there’s just no words.”
With us were Fernando Jr., Carmona and Pico Rivera Mayor John Garcia. The city is coordinating donations to ensure that the evacuated horses are fed and receive medical attention. Thirty have come through so far, with eight still remaining.
“For the victims, the last thing they want to worry about is their animals,” said Carmona, Pico Rivera’s city manager since 2019. “They’re like family to them. People know the Sports Arena and trust it and so appreciate we’re opening our doors.”
“Their hearts are in the right place to be wanting to help,” added Garcia, the Pico Rivera mayor. “It’s important to help, because you never know when bad fortune may come to you, and if we can provide a glimmer of hope to fire victims, then we’ve done our job.”
This isn’t the first time los Lopez have used the Sports Arena to stage something other than entertainment. During the pandemic, they transformed it into a COVID-19 testing station and a place to pick up supplies. When Los Angeles officials booted street vendors from a popular night market on Avenue 26 in Lincoln Heights in 2021, the Sports Arena offered its parking lot to them. The market has been a hit there ever since.
At his El Mariachi restaurant in Encino, Fernando Sr. made 600 burritos for the crew at Los Angeles Fire Department Station 87 in Granada Hills. “My mom would take us to church growing up, and afterward she’d always say, ‘Vengan a’yudar,’” he said.
Come help.
His father, Leonardo, came to the U.S. in the 1960s from La Noria, Durango, along with four brothers to work as braceros and dishwashers before opening a chain of nightclubs that bear Leonardo’s name. The clan took over running the Sports Arena in 2012, and Fernando Sr. is now 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 your countryman a helping hand. “It’s just what we do if you’re from the rancho,” he said, before mentioning my family’s own rural Mexican roots. “You know how it is.”
We walked over to the Sports Arena’s livestock holding area. The Lopez family’s small herd of horses and steers lounged around in an open corral to make room for “their visitors,” as Fernando Sr. jokingly described the evacuated equines. Across from them in their usual stalls stood the eight neighing horses. Taped to each stall door was a paper with their date of arrival and hometown: Altadena, 1/9. Eaton, 1/10. Sylmar, 1/11.
“These guys aren’t comfortable,” said Fernando Jr. as he approached the evacuees. The 20-year-old heads La Noria Entertainment’s charrería team. “They want to go home.”
“Check to see if their eyelids were burnt,” his father said. “And their ears.”
Garcia looked at a brown stallion. “What does it mean if their eyes are really red?” the mayor asked aloud.
“That means they’re really nervous,” Fernando Jr. replied. He then went to a pregnant mare.
“When she was first here, she wouldn’t even come near anyone,” he said. Now, she was nuzzling his hand.
Workers are on hand 24 hours a day to tend to the horses and walk them every day, although Fernando Jr. said their owners prefer to come by and do it themselves. Some have admitted to losing everything, he said; others have kept their situations private.
Despite being in unfamiliar territory, taking the horses for a trot is a way for the owners “to get their minds off of all the problems they’re going to have to face.”
“They don’t know where the water is. They don’t know where the food is,” Fernando Jr. said. “They don’t know where anything is, because this is not where they’re based. It’s like letting someone borrow your shoes.”
He checked on another horse. “But the owners appreciate all of this. They’ll say, ‘Can we pay you for your help?’ But no, no.”
El Monte resident Baltazar Almanza went from stall to stall with a wheelbarrow stacked with small alfalfa bales. He hung them on tack racks. The horses quietly ate.
“It’s all very sad,” the 79-year-old said in Spanish. He has worked at the Sports Arena for more than 20 years. “Life’s tough — don’t think it’s easy. But we’re moving ahead — only thing to do.”
Fernando Sr. showed me a video on his phone from the Hurst fire. In darkness lighted only by flames, people rushed to get horses out of what looked like hell.
“You think they’re not scared? They’re not traumatized?” he said of the horses. “I feel bad, but I’m relieved right now that they’re here. They’re just chilling.”
He worries for the weeks and months ahead. During the pandemic, Sports Arena workers frequently found cast-off, half-starved horses roaming the San Gabriel riverbed and its trails. They would take in the strays, nurse them to health, then turn them over to horse nonprofits.
“I can see people losing everything and having to give up their horses,” Fernando Sr. said. “But you don’t abandon a horse like that. You don’t do that to any animal.”
We stood next to a huge horse trailer. He looked back at his guests. “Ahora sí se pone cabrón.”
Now it gets damn tough.
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