THE SOUTHLAND FIRESTORM: HOLDING THE LINE : Volunteers Mount Effort to Rescue, Shelter Displaced Horses : Livestock: Stable owners also care for rabbits, guinea pigs, ponies, turkeys--even a llama. For those whose animals are still missing, the search is continuing.

The caller was frantic, searching for a horse. The animal would be easy to spot, the woman told the people at Meadows of Moorpark Equestrian Center--the mare with the droopy lip.

The phone at the family-owned ranch rang again, this time with a query about a horse with a blue halter. Throughout the day, horse owners telephoned with other identifying characteristics: a scar on the left hindquarter, oversized shoes, a distinctive jaw.

Please, the callers asked, are our horses there?

Bob and Joy Hallman and their two grown daughters fielded the inquiries at their Ventura County center with a warmth undiminished by their lack of sleep. The family had taken in more than 70 equestrian fire refugees since Tuesday night, most of them from Topanga Canyon and most of them what the Hallmans call “back-yard” horses.

“To their owners, who maybe own one or two horses, these animals are one of a kind. They know all their idiosyncrasies,” Joy Hallman said. But what seemed unique to the owners sometimes offered the Hallmans very little help.

“One guy called and said: ‘It’s a quarter horse gray mare with a really nice trot,’ ” she said with a laugh. “I said: ‘We’ve got 20 gray mares here, and we haven’t had time to ride them.’ ”

Throughout the fire-ravaged area, where the human tragedy has been so well documented, another story of heroism has unfolded. Scores of volunteers came to the aid of county animal regulation workers, braving narrow roads and life-threatening conditions to rescue horses from the burning hills. A much smaller group--including the Hallman family and Zsa Zsa Gabor--offered to house them.

On Thursday, displaced homeowners returned to their charred neighborhoods and began trying to track their animals down. For some, the process was a wrenching one. At the Ventura County Fairgrounds, where 75 displaced horses had found temporary shelter, a tearful woman searched in vain for her mustang.

“It seems the older a person gets, the more attached they get to their horse,” said Robert Meyers, a fairgrounds maintenance worker. “It’s like their child.”

Peggy Savage, the manager of Gabor’s Silver Fox Ranch near Simi Valley, agreed. All day Thursday, she said, people called and stopped by, hoping to find animals lost in the fire. So far, her inventory included 23 horses and a goat: all had already been identified by owners but were being kept there until they could safely return home.

Still, Savage let other heartsick horse owners walk through her barn to satisfy themselves that their lost horses were not there.

“People have such a tie with their horses because they’re great big animals petrified by the least little thing. They’re like that old story: the elephant afraid of the mouse,” she said. “We’re not turning anybody away and it doesn’t have to be movie star horses. Zsa Zsa said to open the doors.”

Some made a mission of saving horses this week: There was a woman from Buena Park who rented a trailer and drove more than 100 miles to put herself in the way of the flames. There were the owners of Equestrian Connection, a Thousand Oaks tack shop, who helped coordinate rescue efforts and drove their own trailers into the fray. There was 30-year-old Nicholas Plasschaert, one of several stuntmen who volunteered their derring-do to help save Topanga Canyon’s highest-stepping residents.

“With 50 trailers, going nonstop, we must have moved 300 horses,” said Plasschaert, of Agua Dulce, who also rescued dogs, ducks and turtles. “All these people were so united. As much of a rush as it is to be a stuntman, I’ve never experienced anything close to the intensity of this scene.”

Not all the horses in the fire area could be evacuated. There were 110 at Mill Creek Equestrian Center on Old Topanga Canyon Road, and after consulting with their owners, proprietor Corey Walkey decided that was too many to move.

So Walkey and her staff stayed with the animals around the clock. When fires approached on three sides of the property, they wielded regulation fire hoses usually used to wet down dusty horse rings. More than once, the animals were moved to safer ground. Wild with fright, some had to be sedated, and some suffered injuries from kicking and biting. But the horses and their protectors prevailed.

“It’s quite miraculous,” James Moore, a riding instructor, said Thursday. “The house about 300 feet from this property is totally destroyed. We just got lucky.”

People who are still searching for their horses should prepare to be patient. Bob Ballenger, executive assistant with the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control, said “horses are scattered, if you’ll excuse the expression, from hell to breakfast.”

At the Los Angeles Equestrian Center in Burbank, 100 horses rescued from Malibu and Topanga had all been identified--as of Thursday, there were no strays. At the Ventura County Fairgrounds, all but seven had been claimed. The White Cloud Ranch on Kanan Road was housing 70 horses, 40 rabbits, 15 guinea pigs, 12 chickens, seven ducks, six ponies, five dogs, three turkeys, two burros and a llama--all of them identified.

“I feel like ‘Old McDonald Had a Farm,’ ” owner Carol Holmes said. And she said she has room for more.

To help in the search for pets of all kinds, the Los Angeles Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has set up a toll-free locater line: (800) 730-4226. Ballenger suggests that people willing to board displaced horses call the Agoura Hills Animal Shelter, which is ready to help arrange transportation and temporary lodging.

At the Hallmans’ ranch, meanwhile, Stella, Buddha, Tequila and Santana were getting to know each other better. It had been a rocky beginning, with so many frenzied horses arriving in the dark. But in just two days, a bunch of strangers had turned into old friends.

When Topanga Canyon resident Darlene Campbell came to retrieve Scooter and Little Bits, the horses of her neighbor, they looked glad to see her. But when she led them to the trailer, 68 other horses registered their displeasure with a chorus of whinnies.

“They have become a herd in two days,” Joy Hallman said. “That’s really beautiful.”