The work began less than an hour after the first fires were reported Sunday night.

“We started getting calls at 11, so I did a Facebook post saying we were open, recalled Casillas. “We went out and evacuated our first set of horses around 11:30. We weren’t just taking animals in at the farm; we were actively evacuating them with a truck and trailer.”

Five of her students who received texts from their teacher soon joined her at the school farm, and despite the chaos of the fires’ rapid spread, their tasks soon became clear.

“It was more like, ‘Let’s start with the basics – get water in every pen we’ve got here and get out the trail, and let’s go from there,’” he said of the early hours for the first five student helpers, who with Casillas labored for nearly 24 hours without a break, deep into Monday night.

Cole, like his schoolmates, has kept busy with a variety of duties, from taking the names of animals and their owners’ phone numbers to feeding and watering the farm’s dozens of four-footed or winged houseguests. He has caught two-hour naps at the family home when possible; otherwise his car has been his bed, while other volunteers have brought air mattresses into farm buildings to sleep.