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Hey Gcreek

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jodywy said:
88 all over again only farther north
Click to expand...

I'd agree, Jody. Have a fellow mineral dealer in Nashua that told me it's the worst he has ever seen it. I think he said
they have only had .4 rain since April. He thinks the grass will hold out til shipping, but the water is a real concern.
Every water source is drying up. That's really bad. If I had to choose between grass and water, I'd take water.
Sure feel bad for those folks. They have had many good years, sold a lot of hay out of there, even to us.
He said jokingly,"we'll be down to get it."

Now fires are starting to pop up in many areas. I feel bad for those folks.
 
The Forestry is doing their damndest to farm every fire going.

Thanks to loggers, ranchers and Volunteer Fire Depts for most of the positive work. A lot of the actual firefighters with boots in the ashes are not allowed to work when they should be on the fire. A grand disaster with Worksafe and Forestry brass to take the full blame for the monstrosity of these fires.

One example was water bombers dodging the smokes that have Williams Lake and near area in jeopardy to get to another fire. Wouldn't a fire boss with a brain have pulled a couple of them to douse the little fires? Those three little fires have now combined to one over 30,000 and still growing.

Mid June I got 2 emails from WL Fire Center. One was banning all campfires in the Chilcotin, the other announcing forestry plans to do a "controlled burn" of 230 acres. The Hancevill fire is now over 60,000 and growing. Caused by a hangfire from their controlled burn. Homes, ranches, hay yards, hundreds of cattle and ranges wiped out by one officious prick's decision to burn at an unsafe time.

Assholes, the whole works of them should spend time in prison.

You may have noticed my frustration. I'm hardly affected by anything but smoke, have friends who have lost most everything.
 
Sounds like the same sonsabitches are managing your fires as the ones down here. BLM and FS get paid to fight fires, not put them out! :mad: 9 lightning strikes since Monday have the desert on fire. We spent all day moving cattle down canyons out of the path of the biggest fire for a great friend. We did catch a break when the last storm had actual rain instead of lightning. First rain we have had since April. Stay safe my amigo! And lets all pray for a good 3inch rain for BC and everywhere else its needed.
 
I was wrong on one of my quotes the Hanceville fire is not 60,000 acres, it is 98000 hectares, a bit over 200,000 and still growing, still 0% contained. Friend and neighbors are saving another's house tonight at Riske Creek with no one from Forestry in attendance.
 
My sympathies for all fighting fires, AND drought. And special prayers to those who are affected by obnoxious government agents and agencies apparently determined to make things even worse for those daring to make beneficial use of land they seem to believe belongs only to 'the public' and shouldn't be used for any benefit to individuals or families.

If there is real justice, those people will spend their after-life fighting horrendous endless fires with only dry gunny sacks and no water!

That may be harsh, but there seems no end to the idiocy. The recent fire in the SD Badlands south of Kadoka and Wall, and I'm not certain it has ended yet after about three days, due in no small part to mis-management by government and/or tribal agencies.

Several days have seen build-up of promising appearing thunderhead clouds, but little to no rain falls! It has been quite a few years since it has been this bad here, but most of us over age 70 have experienced several of them. Hate it! And really feel sorry for the younger ones trying to get established in ranching or farming businesses. Seems pretty painful for those for whom it is so much more than just a business or an investment.

mrj
 
Don't know how it works there but here the used to fight fire at night when it was down out of the treetops and sleep during the day when it was up and running.
Now they aren't allowed to fight fire. At night.
Any fool can see there are a lot more uncontrollable catastrophes.
They also consider it more important to spread the money around than it is to have the best stay the duration.
When you loose you have to blame it on global warming.
 
Been lucky where we are thus far, about 600 miles southeast of Gcreek, but had a couple small fires this past week. One was a lightning strike 4 miles up the valley, local crew got it out real quick with the help of a helicopter from forestry. Second fire a couple nights back was a hay shed, sounds like heated bales. Bad deal, the guy was pretty hasty making the hay I noticed, now he has 1 shed instead of 2, and half the hay he had a week ago. Crazy year, went from record high river levels flooding up to the back porch, to 3 months of above average temperatures with 2 inches of rain since early June.

Like Gcreek said, forestry ought to have their asses lined up for a public stoning. The **** they allow to happen for logging, then the lack of grazing in areas that become match boxes of fuel, then the poor management when fires do occur, it's criminal.
 
And less lazy, incompetent, money hungry fire "managers" looking for a big paycheque this year. The Elephant Hill fire is over 60% caused by escaped back burns. Can we say farming?
 
In this area, at least when I was growing up ages ago, they were called Prairie Fires, even tho there was some farming in the area. There were still huge areas of native grass, much of it harvested for hay by crews of people who came into the area somewhat like the wheat harvesters some years later after much of the prairies were turned into farms. I'm talking mid-1940's to maybe 1955 or so, in the area I somewhat 'knew' as a child born in 1940. It was roughly bounded by Hayes, Murdo, Kadoka, Philip, 4-Corners, back to Hayes, each community being within 20 to 30 miles of Midland. That distance being about the farthest my family travelled at the time except for a rare trip to Pierre. I was between age six and 14 in that time frame. Fires terrified me, beginning with a grain elevator fire in Midland, about a block from my home when I was maybe five or six. The flames lit up the night and I was sure we were all going to go up in flames as we didn't have a car at the time. I remember several large prairie fires after we moved to my grandparents ranch ten miles from Midland, but it has been may years ago and we have better equipped rural fire departments and the volunteers have some training, tho likely not really enough, and there aren't enough young guys, they seem to do a great job when needed.

I haven't seen many plowed or other types of fireguards in recent years. Realizing many fields are on such a large scale that probably isn't practical and with financial rewards for agriculture so unstable these days, they seem to need every inch of ground producing something, but stopping fires might be worth some sacrifice.

Not sure how we could do it on big areas of native grasses and forbs which make up many ranches, but roads and trails we roughly grade up on our ranch to enable quicker hauling of hay, etc. would slow things down a bit. The fires in the area in past year or two have been driven by such wild winds, nothing helped much except for sudden direction change of those winds, along with the desperate (and lucky!!!!) volunteer fire fighters.

There do seem to be complaints against 'government' fire departments for not knowing and even discounting the value of expertise of the volunteer rural firefighters' knowledge of their area. We have even heard of rural areas where the land owner is forbidden by local 'rules' to go fight fire on his own property! That would be awfully hard to take if ones' own property was burning.

We do seem to be getting some rain in spots of west central SD this morning. And some high winds and hail. Even flooding on the lower Bad River near and in Ft. Pierre. A very welcome .38" here, and heard of a 2.5" less than 20 miles n.e. of us. Still cloudy, but some may be our 'share' of the eclipse.

With total sympathy for those still fighting fires in their areas. Smoke has been difficult for some with breathing problems, and must be so much worse closer to the source.

mrj
 
That's hard for someone like me to even imagine.
No way a fire can get to any size here.
We burn fields off even.
 
jedstivers said:
That's hard for someone like me to even imagine.
No way a fire can get to any size here.
We burn fields off even.
Click to expand...
That was a real struggle when my wife and I were trying to drum up local support for the fires in Kansas and western OK earlier this year. People here had no clue what kind of devastation we were telling them about. We took video when we went to Ashland and it blew people away to see that kind of destruction. I grew up in CA, which is a tinder box six months out of the year and I wasn't prepared for some of what I saw.
 
cow pollinater said:
jedstivers said:
That's hard for someone like me to even imagine.
No way a fire can get to any size here.
We burn fields off even.
Click to expand...
That was a real struggle when my wife and I were trying to drum up local support for the fires in Kansas and western OK earlier this year. People here had no clue what kind of devastation we were telling them about. We took video when we went to Ashland and it blew people away to see that kind of destruction. I grew up in CA, which is a tinder box six months out of the year and I wasn't prepared for some of what I saw.
Click to expand...

Won't know until fall but thinking livestock losses there were more than this will end up being. Still, 30,000+ cattle affected on 2,000,000 acres + who knows what the losses will be. Know of several hundred dead or euthanized already. Some folks that were struggling financially will likely go broke over this issue. Feel so bad for so many friends.
 
gcreekrch said:
cow pollinater said:
jedstivers said:
That's hard for someone like me to even imagine.
No way a fire can get to any size here.
We burn fields off even.
Click to expand...
That was a real struggle when my wife and I were trying to drum up local support for the fires in Kansas and western OK earlier this year. People here had no clue what kind of devastation we were telling them about. We took video when we went to Ashland and it blew people away to see that kind of destruction. I grew up in CA, which is a tinder box six months out of the year and I wasn't prepared for some of what I saw.
Click to expand...

Won't know until fall but thinking livestock losses there were more than this will end up being. Still, 30,000+ cattle affected on 2,000,000 acres + who knows what the losses will be. Know of several hundred dead or euthanized already. Some folks that were struggling financially will likely go broke over this issue. Feel so bad for so many friends.
Click to expand...
I doubt anyone will have any hard numbers for a long time to come. We went to Ashland about a month after the fire and they were still finding and destroying cattle.
With as much fence burned up in all these fires there's really no way to get an accurate count.
Even the stuff that survives is going to be set back for at least a year at least so who knows how many cattle that made it will still wind up being a cull because of all of this.
 
gcreekrch said:
Feel so bad for so many friends.
Click to expand...
Yes. I've always considered myself a cattleman first but that trip made me realize how much the people mean to me. I hate that business suffers, I can't stand the thought of the stock that has suffered, but both of those have already dulled with time for me. What I won't ever, ever, forget is the image of a little boys bicycle still on it's kickstand on a chunk of concrete that used to be someones front porch with every ounce of rubber and paint completely obliterated along with the house it stood in front of. That image won't ever leave and when I think of it I remember the way his grandmother hugged me when we started unloading the trailer.
It's the people part that matters.
 

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