FIRE Part 1
Devastation by Fire by Heather Smith Thomas
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evastating wildfires began early again this year, covering the West with smoke and destroying millions of acres of forests and grasslands, along with ranchers’ livestock and livelihoods—and wiping out entire towns. Numbers and statistics don’t begin to tell the story of human heartbreak, however. The people who have lost their homes (many have lost everything except their lives), the ranchers who have watched in frustration and grief as their livestock die in the flames—with nothing they can do to save them—can’t find the words to fully express the depth of tragedy. But their stories pull at our hearts. RANCHERS
Billie and Wally Roney graze their cattle on private and federal land in northern California, where Wally is the fifth generation of his family to run cattle on the rolling grasslands near the tiny town of Vina—in the foothills beneath Mount Lassen and Mount Shasta. Currently the Dixie fire is raging through their area, engulfing much of their grazing land and their neighbors’ ranches. They hope their nearly 100-year-old cabin and private timber might be spared. Billie is devastated by what is happening to their land and cattle, but her concern extends to friends and neighbors in the area. When asked about the fire (as she was recuperating from surgery on August 18), she said, “I am so worried about my dear friends whose herd could again be in peril; not to mention their home ranch which may be destroyed by this fire. Only two weeks ago, they managed to pull off a near impossible feat of gathering their cattle and shipping them out from land that is now laid barren to the fire. Now this?” After moving their own cattle out of harm’s way from the original Dixie Fire to a safe location, a new fire on Morgan Summit grew to merge with the Dixie and has now burned where those cattle had been just a few days earlier. The winds have whipped this new area of fire and it now has the potential to threaten a larger region. Billie was also trying to provide moral support to others who are going through hell because of this fire. “I spent a long time on the phone tonight listening to a forester friend who is on the brink of losing it. I didn’t know how to help, but knew I had to try. It is heart-wrenching trying to pull someone from the edge. I can’t count how many places [ranches] I am keeping track of the fire for, and then ranch life happens… SO
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Livestock Market Digest
much went wrong today, and Wally finally Lunder’s detailed work (https://the-lookfound the courage to tell me that our cattle out.org/2021/08/19/dixie-fire-8-19-2021/) that are still up there might not have made it, allowed me and others to better understand and there was another fire in our meadow at what might happen (and when) by distilling Clover. I feel broken – but I also feel God’s the huge avalanche of material and his intigrace.” mate knowledge of the landscape,” she said. She said that the Dixie Fire has now “There are many selfless people out there expanded well up into Lassen National Park working on the fires, and they are all heroes and is heading toward Mineral, an historic to me. These heroes include our Farm old community that once had a small sawmill Advisor Tracy Schohr who made sure ranchand now is headquarters for the Park. The ers could get through closed roads to save Dixie fire started July 13, just north of the their livestock in at least four counties, and Cresta Dam, which is not far from where the brilliant minds who made use of technolthe 2018 Camp Fire northeast of Paradise ogy to track fire in almost real time. Also, the claimed the lives of more than 80 people. men and women in our small communities The Dixie fire had already leveled more who help each other 24/7 and especially my than a dozen houses and other structures husband who literally rode through that fire in mid-July when it combined with the Fly for weeks (mostly alone) every day to get out Fire and roared through the tiny community as many of our ‘girls’ as he could when the of Indian Falls in late July. More than 100 winds changed and put the cattle at risk.” homes in the Indian Falls and surrounding One of their friends spent a couple days areas were destroyed. Then on August 4, the helping Wally move cattle. “He attempted fire nearly obliterated the town of Greenville. to chronicle a lot of it, and wanted to add People are frustrated by devastation that context and he did a great job of doing that. could have been prevented. “It is interesting Wally sent him home after two days, however, that the Forest Service and Park Service’s ‘Let not wanting to put him at risk. We love him, it Burn’ policy was first protested as a result but Wally spent too much time trying to track of the 1998 Huffer Fire,” Billie said. “After him when he needed to focus on the cattle,” over a week of letting one lightning-struck Billie said. snag burn, that fire eventually burned 2,200 FIRE BY THE NUMBERS acres and cost $2.2 million to extinguish,” These frantic efforts to save livestock, Billie said. pastures and homes are now commonplace “Wally and I went back to Washington, DC in many regions as fires burn out of control. in the late 1980s to deliver a message to the undersecretary of Agriculture at the time – As of August 23, 2021, a total of 6,685 fires when environmentalists were shutting down had been recorded in California, burning logging as we knew it. Wally told them that 1,570,151 acres (more than 2,300 square their practices would result in catastrophic miles) acres across the state. At least 1,998 wildfire unless they changed course. Of buildings had been destroyed, and at least seven firefighters and two civilians were course they didn’t, and here we are.” injured battling the fires. LEARNING HOW TO PREDICT & PLAN In January 2021 alone, 297 fires burned Now the fires have been threatening their 1,171 acres on nonfederal land according to ranch and cattle. “After going through the the California Department of Forestry and angst of following two fires last year in an Fire Protection, which was almost triple the attempt to help Wally get our cattle out of number of fires and more than 20 times the harm’s way, I learned how to use various acreage of the five-year average for January. resources to try to anticipate the fire’s behav- The 2021 fires were exacerbated by unseaior as much as possible. It didn’t take long sonably strong Santa Ana winds, and some to realize that waiting for agency and news of them burned in the same areas as previous reports, orders, (let alone a wall of flames fires like the CZU Lightning Complex. or another ‘firenado’) would leave us behind In terms of total number of fires, the the eight ball when trying to move our cattle,” 2021 season has so far outpaced the 2020 Billie said. season, which itself was the largest season In the effort to use the incredible fire in California’s recorded history. As of July 11, cameras (http://beta.alertwildfire.org/) to 2021 more than three times as many acres triangulate the proximity of the fires, online had burned, compared to the previous year scanners, wildfire forums consisting mostly through that date, with drought, extreme of fire professionals with up-to-the-minute heat, and reduced snowpack contributing to intel (forums.wildfireintel.org) plus fire maps the severity of the fires. California also faces and wind maps galore, she eventually found increased risk of post-wildfire landslides, due a dedicated and selfless fire mapper. “Zeke to loss of vegetation to hold the soil when the
