As wildfires burn in the Los Angeles officials have ordered area residents to leave. However, in spite of the orders, Tippi Hedren is staying at her animal sanctuary and hoping for the best.

Thick black smoke hovers overhead as dozens of lions, tigers and other large cats roam actress Tippi Hedren’s animal sanctuary, seemingly unfazed by a wildfire raging only a mile away.

Fire officials ordered Hedren, who starred in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 horror classic “The Birds,” to evacuate the Shambala Preserve days ago. But she sees no need to load up the animals yet.

“Nobody wants lions and tigers going down the road,” Hedren, 79, told The Associated Press on Tuesday in a phone interview from her home on the preserve in northern Los Angeles County.

“We’ve never had to do that. I’m knocking on wood right now. We’ve been through floods, fires, incredible things Mother Nature has the capability of handing us.”

Hedren, mother of actress Melanie Griffith, said she has spoken with the Fire Department and has steel crates and trailers ready to move the 64 big cats if the fire gets closer to the property. In addition, the preserve conducts fire clearance every six months and has a 22,000-gallon water tank, a lake, firefighting pumps and backup generators.

Read the rest of Tippi Hedren’s animal preserve threatened by fire.