The ranch near Moorpark is scarred now, a few singed structures standing in a sunken valley surrounded by hills that look like coal piles.

Not that Carilyn Simmons, 60, needs any visuals. She woke up in the middle of the night this week when a trace of smoke filtered into the house. Simmons darted outside and saw some smoldering spots and quickly doused them with the garden hose.

After last Saturday, she said, she's not taking any chances.

"One of those things could spark up and the fire could happen all over again," she said.

The fire.

She doesn't feel the need to call it anything else. It's already become shorthand for the blazes that have consumed lives, homes and land throughout Southern California over the past week. Simmons' Spirit Dancer Ranch was among the first to be scorched.

Standing near the ashes of what used to be a barn, she remembered how at around 8 a.m. Sunday, the fire seemed distant.

With a few horse owners standing by, they went about the business of feeding and caring for the animals, every once in awhile checking the ridge above to make sure the flames didn't make an appearance.

Bruce Borin, 60, had just arrived that morning to help out and had planned to stay only a short while. An hour later, he realized he wasn't going anywhere.

"I pulled up, everything was normal," he said. "An hour later, I'm in a firefight."

The fire descended upon the 93-acre ranch with such speed, the dozen or so people barely had time to consider what they were seeing.

One of the first things in the fire's path was Simmons' 18-year-old horse, Sierra.

Stiff from arthritis, Sierra had trouble walking on a good day, and there was no way she could out-gallop this fire.

Joy Baumann, 32, decided to try to coax her into the horse trailer, where the plan was to fill it with a dozen equines and haul them up the hill to a neighbor's ranch.

Simmons said Sierra hadn't stepped into a horse trailer in more than two years -- the elevation was just too high.

But Baumann, with eyes burning from floating ash, was undeterred.

"It was pure faith and trust," she said. Gingerly, Sierra hobbled into the trailer. Soon, the trailer was crammed with 11 other horses.

But the fire was sweeping around the ranch. Armed with garden hoses, they placed themselves at strategic spots to keep the flames at bay. Jennifer Martin said she felt overwhelmed when she saw a stream of water facing down the wall of fire.

"I see this spit of water coming out, and I'm thinking that spitting might actually be more effective," she said.

For three hours, they shot water at the fire. Then, the Long Beach Fire Department arrived.

Martin said it was a huge relief to see them.

Capt. Moe Sinsley showed up with 21 firefighters. A crew stood guard at Simmons' house while Sinsley helped out with herding some of the livestock.

A pair of donkeys, frightened by the fire, appeared trapped by a fence -- one that they were on the wrong side of. Sinsley said there was a hole in the fence and they were trying to coax the animals through it. But they wouldn't budge.

"We ended getting over the fence, running behind them and trying to steer them to the hole," he said. "It worked."

Borin was having his own problems with two 900-pound pigs. One, named Harley, was so spooked by the fire it tried to find refuge in a cat house -- a treehouse-sized structure where Simmons' felines lived.

Harley, upon finding some cat food inside to soothe his nerves, stayed there while Borin tried to shoo him out.

"I didn't realize how big he was," Borin said. "I got inside, and he started gnawing at my leg. I mean, he was just gumming me, but I started throwing cat food out the window just to get him to chase it."

The tactic worked, and the two pigs managed to join a herd of sheep through a wash and into safety.

The firefighters had to pull out because houses in Moorpark were being threatened. They also watched helplessly as an ember touched off the barn and sent it into explosion of orange.

Before they left, the firefighters gave those remaining a crash course in firefighting. Forget the burning tires; the rubber will burn itself out: Forget the wood chips on the ground; they'll just get hot and burn slow: Don't let the telephone pole catch on fire; it's highly flammable.

With that, Martin said, they thanked the firefighters and got back to animal rescue. A few of them wrangled horses to a roping corral near the 6th hole of the Moorpark Country Club Golf Course.

A few horses managed to break free, however, and stood on the putting green. Martin and Simmons both said a man in a home yelled at them to get the horses off the green.

"I couldn't believe it," Martin said. "We're burning here, and he doesn't even offer to help? Unbelievable."

They were rounded up, however, and as the afternoon wore on, the flames began to diminish. Simmons said all the animals were saved. They included ducks, geese, dogs, cats and even some turkeys.

Almost a week later, standing in a steady drizzle looking at the blackened hills, she said she couldn't imagine if any animals had been lost.

"If we'd left before it got bad, I don't think I could have come back to see what was left," she said.