Strong Santa Ana winds and a landscape already parched by drought have combined to help nearly a dozen fires spread across Southern California since the weekend. Many horse owners have evacuated, applying the lessons learned after a string of similar fires ravaged the area in 2003 and left dozens of horses dead and hundreds abandoned.

According to the National Interagency Fire Center, more than 90,000 acres have burned from San Diego County up to Santa Barbara County. The Santa Ana winds, which are fanning these fires, are expected to continue blowing through Tuesday.

According to Larry Catt, DVM, senior partner of Large Animal Veterinary Associates in El Cajon, Calif., horse owners in the San Diego area are better prepared to deal with fire than they were four years ago.

"At this point they’ve had to evacuate 250,000 people and there’s over 100,000 acres that have burned," Catt said. "I think the big difference is that this fire is moving slow enough that it gave people the opportunity to get out before it turned into such a disaster. There’s no question–people are much more hypersensitive to the situation, given what they went through four years ago