Elk Fire (Wyoming) Impacts on Ranching - Insight 10

After a lightning strike and ensuing monitor process whereupon the Elk Fire drastically blew up and created the dangerous, nearly 80,000-acre blaze (as of this morning) it remains a reminder to the inherent, natural dangers within ranching. While men and women outside agriculture, like those firefighters actively engaged with the danger, are vital, right now my thoughts are focused on the ranching families and communities immediately impacted.

Every year herds are summered in those beautiful Bighorn Mountains and brought home in early fall before calf sales. Now, ranchers are using every method possible via horse, cattle dog, and ATVs to get livestock to some form of refuge before being overrun by the fire. Over the past week men and women have fought across the mountain sides of the Bighorns to frantically push cattle out of the forests and thick brush toward safety. Many are not returning home, instead they are finding a reprieve far from it due to the rapid growth and proximity of the danger.

Throughout the past week boys have become men and girls are now women. While I have not been there personally, I guarantee these are the moments that are happening at the levels reporters will fail to share with the public. Lives are at stake and those on the front lines are men, women, and kids looking out for animals—not just themselves. Boys have worked endless hours alongside fathers, uncles, cousins, and grandfathers who are working without stop to gather cattle in rough country and push them to safety. Girls, if not working with their mothers and grandmothers alongside the men, are at home trying to save what they can domestically as the men labor outside and in the far reaches of pastures. They are evacuating, gathering valuables, and saying goodbye to what they know now because they have no idea as to what they may or may not return.

Now, communities are called to action to work beyond limits and laws to get livestock to safety. Sounding alarms have broken social media platforms begging for additional truck drivers to arrive and assist in hauling cattle away from the monster blaze. Again, I assure you logbooks have been tucked away and driving hours fibbed because they are placing animals above themselves. They are making hard, short-term sacrifices to ensure they save as many as possible. How do I know? Because that is the ranching spirit—just make it happen. Yes, the livestock are part of a business and are technically considered assets, but they are loved and cared after more than anyone outside ranching of farming can comprehend.

While all this occurs, men sit horseback, drive trucks, or load cattle and think to themselves about how they will make it through. They question the accuracy of their headcounts, they ponder the costs now burdened upon them, they wonder how they might feed critters in the looming winter months, how much is now owed in unexpected debts. They ask themselves if this might suddenly become their last year due to the raging circumstances beyond their control? The dark, hard questions are endless and without any reprieve of answers as they continue to work. They are thinking and figuring as best as they can as their bodies trudge and hands sore from the exhaustive work they do now just to survive.

As we experienced extreme winds the last few days about 180 miles north of the inferno, I thought of those in front of its path. I wondered about those fighting the fire. And took moments to give well wishes to those pouring all their blood, sweat, and tears into saving property, livelihoods, and, most importantly, lives. The danger of this fire is beyond comprehension. I hope it all ends soon and I pray it does not kill another ranching family’s way of life. I hope beyond anything they all make it through to next year…