The kitten's paw pads were red and torn.

Most of her beard is gone. Her ears were burned. Her eyelids were swollen.

When Vanessa Ortiz, a veterinary technician at the Pasadena Humane Society, picked up the kitten, she paused to remind herself to move more carefully.

"You have to be careful when handling them," she said, "because they're very brittle."

The severely burned kitten, who is about 3 months old and about 4 months old, was found in Pasadena this week by a firefighter in parts of Altadena that were scorched by the Eaton Fire. He was treated in the Humane Society's intensive care unit.

The shelter is home to more than 500 animals displaced by the fire, which started on January 7 and is still burning. The Eaton Fire and another fire earlier in the day in Pacific Palisades have burned more than 37,000 acres and destroyed at least 10,697 structures. Officials have confirmed 27 deaths.

Many people fleeing the fires were forced to make devastating choices for their pets. Some got scared and hid or refused to leave. In other cases, their owners are not home and cannot return safely.

Animal control officers from the city and county of Los Angeles have been scouring the burn area, looking for missing pets and leaving food and water behind. But increasingly frustrated residents still have no access to large evacuation zones cordoned off by National Guardsmen and law enforcement officers. Many people worry about their furry family members.

At the Pasadena Humane Society, many of the displaced pets are brought in by owners who had to evacuate and were unable to take the animals to the hotel rooms where they were staying, emergency shelters or friends' homes. Others, such as kittens, were found in the wreckage - neither their names nor their owners (if there were any) are known.

Hundreds of cats and dogs are in shelters this week. There are about 50 chickens. Three water dragon lizards. Some rabbits and goats. A pony, wandering around the office before being moved to the stables. and a 28-year-old, 200-pound man. The turtle's name is Huckleberry.

A 5-day-old puppy was found under a collapsed building with its eyes yet to open. She rested in an incubator in the shelter's intensive care unit until staff found a foster home where she could recover.

The Pasadena Humane Society is offering free boarding to pets of known owners for as long as needed, said Kevin McManus, spokesman for the nonprofit shelter.

"We hope people don't lose their homes and families," McManus said of the pets. "We knew it was going to be a long journey."

Normally, shelters keep stray or unidentified animals for five days before putting them up for adoption. McManus said animals that survived the fire will be held for at least 21 days while staff and volunteers work to find their owners.

All animals that were adoptable before the fire were moved to shelters in Sacramento, Santa Barbara, San Diego and other cities to make way for fire refugees.

People donated so much pet food, leashes, toys, crates, cat litter and other supplies that the Pasadena Humane Society had to borrow warehouse space to store the items, McManus said. He added that the shelter now needs financial donations, not supplies.

The wind howled that day, the fire spread, and lines of people dropping off pets at the Pasadena shelter stretched around the block.

People found in the scorched area had burns and cuts. They were dehydrated, breathing heavily, and some had their eyes closed.

They are traumatized.

The unidentified black and brown kitten in the intensive care unit - known only as A519470 - sat in a cage and stared straight ahead, even as people were busy in the room.

Ortiz said she tried to run away when she first got there earlier this week, hissing every time someone tried to touch her. After a night's sleep, she woke up in good spirits, leaving the medical staff scratching her chin.

"Right now, we're feeling very optimistic because she's eating, drinking and moving," Ortiz said Wednesday as she prepared to apply manuka honey to the kitten's burns to ease the pain. "Some of our cats weren't moving at all. We did lose a few."

Ortiz's voice broke.

Last week, she helped care for Roxy, a 15-year-old poodle rescued from a collapsed house. The dog suffered severe burns, ulcers on his eyes and red and swollen gums from smoke inhalation. She had trouble breathing.

Ortiz said Roxy's owner was an older man. When someone called him after finding Roxy, he was confused.

"He said, 'Sorry, my dog ​​is white, not gray. I don't think that's my dog," Ortiz said.

It's Roxy. She was covered in ash.

"His house is completely gone," Ortiz said. "She is 15 years old. She managed to escape."

The owner took her to Pasadena Humane Road and then to another city where he had a residence.

Ortiz recalled that when he handed Roxy over to him, "He kind of didn't want me to take her. He kind of wanted to grab her. But -"

Roxy was transferred to an emergency hospital. She died three days later.

Outside the intensive care unit of a humane hospital in Pasadena, two large gray dogs, believed to be Cane mixes, shared a kennel, leaning against each other and looking up at passers-by with sad eyes. They were brought in from the emergency veterinary hospital. In the fire zone, they drank car coolant, possibly because they were thirsty.

"Now that they're stabilized, they're here, we anticipate they'll recover," McManus said. "The next step is to try to find out where they came from. Who they belong to."

In another room, a 14-year-old tabby cat named Milo, who was given away by his owner on Jan. 7, put his paws into a crate for volunteer Gabby Solingen (Gaby Solingen) Adopt a pet. She smiled and said he obviously got a lot of attention at home.

Solingen, who lives in Tarzana, evacuated his parents from their home near Mulholland Drive when the Palisades Fire came too close. It survived, but most of her friends' did not. Her alma mater, Palisades Charter High School, was severely damaged.

She said she volunteered at Pasadena Humane Hospital on Wednesday because it felt good to do something productive.

"I want to help," she said. "I was just sitting there, kind of sad."

That afternoon, Michael and Kimberly Guccione, a septuagenarian couple from Altadena, brought their 16-year-old baby in two soft crates. Cats Nellie and Lili leave the shelter.

The Gucciones threw the cat out the night of the fire and spent a week at a Red Cross shelter waiting to be allowed to return to their home, but they survived. These cats, who might have been too skittish in a shelter, among hundreds of people, were well cared for at the Pasadena Humane Shelter.

When they were reunited with their owners, they were exhausted and unresponsive. But the Gucciones were happy and relieved to see them.

"They are our family," Kimberly Guccione said. "We miss them terribly."