Western wildfires threaten farmers, ranchers

By Ryan Hanrahan

Northern California’s Park Fire has surpassed 360,000 acres and triggered evacuation orders affecting four counties, CBS News reported Sunday. The network added that by Sunday morning, containment had increased to 12%, according to Cal Fire.

The state issued evacuation orders for four northern counties — Butte, Plumas, Shasta, and Tehama — the network's Richard Ramos, Brandon Downs, and Cecilio Padilla reported Sunday. They said the state's largest wildfire this year and California's seventh-largest ever has scorched an area more than five times the size of the city of Sacramento.

The wildfire has threatened cattle, bees, and other livestock as it advanced into Tehama County from its starting point in north Chico, the Redding Record Searchlight’s Jessica Skropanic reported Saturday. “It has been a rough six years for agribusiness owners in Butte and Tehama counties, who fought to save their farms from two other major wildfires and numerous smaller fires,” Skropanic reported.

Smoke settling in the valley can make harvesting difficult and unpleasant for farmers, but ranchers and honeybee keepers are directly in the fire’s path, Rory Crowley, a commercial agribusiness loan officer in Paradise, told Skropanic. “They’re on summer range, which is up in the mountains,” he said. “Cattle and bees need water, so they summer at higher altitudes.”

Area ranchers under evacuation orders were hesitant to leave their stock, Crowley told the newspaper.

Oregon farmers and ranchers affected, too

Eastern Oregon’s Durkee Fire is affecting farmers and ranchers in that region, Alma McCarty of Portland TV station KGW reported at the end of last week. “Ranchers in Vale told KGW there’s no way to know at this time just how many cattle — and ranches — have been lost to the flames,” she said.

Rancher Mark McBride told McCarty the blaze was “completely devastating,” noting one of his family's ranches was “right in the middle of it, and one of them is next to come if we can’t get it stopped.” McBride, also a volunteer firefighter for Vale Rangeland Fire Protection Association, added: “High emotions, high losses. And it will remain that way for a generation.”

The fire forced a rancher in far eastern Oregon's Rye Valley to leave behind 150 pair of mothers and calves, a wildfire fighter told an Idaho TV reporter. Blake Maxwell, based in Montana, told Boise reporter Aspen Shumpert that if the cattle survive, they are most likely sick or injured.

“I watched fire corral these cows in the corner of a pasture,” Maxwell told Shumpert, of KTVB. “I tried to get up there and cut the fence for them, and I couldn’t quite get there in time.” Shumpert said it was unsure if the cattle survived because the area has not been surveyed.

“A lot of those ranchers they may have to sell off most of their cows, take them to the sale barn, because they can’t afford to feed them, because the grass they’re depending on is now ash on the ground,” Maxwell told the reporter.

A version of this story was originally published by farmdoc.