This is a picture taken from the front of our house this morning. Nothing can explain the feeling that swarms the pit of your stomach when you realize that your house is seriously in danger. It started several miles to the southwest, along with about 25 other fires in the area by a lovely, dry lightening storm. All of the ranch crew was in Winnemucca enjoying one another's company at the Martin Restaurant and later the bowling alley when we heard news that many had been started. We immediately headed home to find fire line after fire line in the darkness of the evening along the freeway. With our ranch encompassing so many acres, we all feared something had started our way as well. Surely enough, word had quickly come that part of one of our BLM allotments had ignited.
Knowing that I had never had the experience of fighting a large fire and wanted to get in on the action, Ricarda offered to let me have the first shift while she watched the kids. I drove out to the allotment with all of the guys (Greg, Jesse, Ty, Adam, & Dick) to find our neighbors, the BLM, and the fire department there working. We immediately went to fighting and continued to put out lines with our shovels & water tank while Jesse disked a fire line with the tractor. We did this for several hours through the night, focusing on one fire line at a time, until it seemed the end was in sight with the last fire line amounting to about 200 yards. I couldn't believe how the fire just seemed to be a being of it's own-- a snarling, raging beast. With one small change in the wind, the line could turn directly back towards you and chase you faster than you could run. At one point the wind made such a drastic change back towards us in the cheat grass that we had no choice but to jump through the fire onto the ground that had already been consumed. Such an encounter certainly did not pale in comparison on the adrenaline scale to a good bungee jump or tall cliff-dive.
As we continued to work the fire of the last remaining line, we suddenly noticed that we were alone. No fire trucks, no BLM, no neighbors. No explanation as to where they had gone. We were on our own to make sure this thing was put out. We continued to pound out the line with our shovels behind Jesse's disk line and it seemed we were finally going to be putting this nightmare to bed. Just a few minutes later, our luck took a turn for the worst as we noticed Jesse had hit a bed of sharp rocks and popped the front tire of the tractor. We remained steadfast in pounding the line when suddenly the wind once again took a drastic turn back toward us. The flames immediately increased in size and in temperature as the fuel from the wind and the grass caused it to roar with exceeding magnitude. It was then that we decided we needed to head back and fill the water tank again... it was our only chance. As we painstakingly walked away from the battle we had fought for hours, we watched as the flames quickly drew themselves up the canyon... right towards our spring grazing range.
To make a long story much shorter, that was the point where the fire became out of control... it headed up the canyon, over the hill towards our place at Upper Clover, and also straight towards Squaw Valley headquarters. It did not take long for the fire department & BLM to prioritize the severity of our situation in comparison to the 25 other fires in the area and begin to help once again. Planes were sent in, cows were hurriedly moved out of harm's way, and retardant barriers were dropped around all of the homesteads. It took 3 days to control this animal that consumed about 40,000 acres of our ranch. Certainly we had much to be grateful for.... no buildings were damaged, no cows were lost, and no one was hurt. I just hope that we are able to continue to operate as needed given the amount of spring grazing ground that we will be unable to utilize for at least the next couple years.
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