Recovery From January Wildfire
Is Slow, But It Is Happening
By Colleen Schreiber
WATER VALLEY – A January 1 wildfire that stretched 18 miles long and swept over 39,892 acres of Sterling County and a small portion of Tom Green County over about a 10-hour period has had a negative impact on wildlife populations here. Ranchers have also lost at least one grazing season, for the most part. They are hoping the negative impacts will be short-lived.
That was the gist of what several speakers had to say during a recent wildlife/livestock field day that focused on maximizing profit while minimizing conflict, a field day sponsored by Texas Wildlife Association and Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association. Participants had the opportunity to view part of the burned area on the Clark Ranch just northwest of Water Valley.
The first day of the new year brought with it unseasonably warm temperatures in the mid-80 degree range, seven percent humidity and 20 to 40 mile per hour winds out of the west. The area had been extremely dry through the winter months, but good rains had fallen through the previous spring and summer, so there was an abundance of dry forage. All of these things together made for prime wildfire conditions.
A substantial portion of Alan Curry’s family ranch, the Clark Ranch, was burned and some 18 miles of fence. Fortunately, no livestock perished in the fire.
“It was a very scary situation,” Alan Curry commented. “It was burning so fast and so hot that we basically just got the heck away. There was little we could do. The low humidity really hurt us.”
There was concern that the fire was headed to the little community of Water Valley, so firefighters used heavy equipment to put in fireguards and then began setting backfires from there.
Volunteer firefighters from several surrounding counties had their hands full, as on that same day another fire was burning just west of Water Valley on some of the Suggs and Rocker B country in Reagan and Irion counties. All told, 40,000 acres were scorched in the other wildfire.
Curry says the hardest loss for him was the loss of grazing.
“We try to take good care of these ranches. Now we don’t even have the opportunity to make some money off the ranch from the livestock. That’s out the window for now.
“We shipped several loads of cattle to another ranch west of Sterling City, and we took some more to a pasture across the highway,” Curry told listeners.
“We’re lucky in that we didn’t have to sell anything and we didn’t have to find a pasture to lease. Lot of the guys in the Panhandle, I’m hearing, had to go to Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Kansas to find grass.”
Though he didn’t lose any livestock, a cousin who has 16 sections west of him lost 50 or so ewes and five cows.
“I was able to find the majority of my cattle that next day. All of our sheep hung out down on the river.
“We did find a few dead deer, mostly in the corners.”
Curry said he won’t replace all of the 18 miles of fence he lost, at least not all right now. He will start first on his perimeter fences and later rebuild some crossfences.
He talked about a light at the end of the tunnel in that there is some cost-share money available through the USDA/NRCS EQIP program. It will be a 50-50 deal up to $1.30 per foot.
They are offering assistance to landowners affected in the West Texas fires as well as those in the Panhandle, where some half a million acres burned.
NRCS is also offering another $5 per acre for those willing to defer their pastures for an entire growing season, basically April through November.
“That’s like rain from the heavens,” Curry told listeners.
Texas Parks and Wildlife biologist Ruben Cantu pointed out that this might be a good time for ranchers to reevaluate their fencing configurations.
“A lot of these old interior fences may have been functional when these were great big old ranches,” he noted, “but many of these ranches have been cut up since then. Now will be a good time for them to see how they might want to change their fences to better utilize the terrain and better utilize country for the kind of animals that they’re stocking on their properties.”
The section pasture where the field tour stopped had about 40 percent of the brush canopy removed in 330-foot strips three or four years ago. Curry, who manages his family’s operation, believes in taking care of the country through proper deferment and proper stocking.
“We might defer some of our country for a year at a time,” he told listeners, “particularly if we’ve done brush control work. We watch our key grasses. When we return to a pasture depends, too, on the class of livestock we intend to stock.”
That particular pasture, Curry said, had been stocked with some dry ewes prior to the burn, so it wasn’t being used all that heavily.
Since the burn, Curry’s country has received about 3.75 inches of rain.
“We had a two-inch rain when there was nothing on the ground. Soot was running everywhere. We washed out fences with that two-inch rain because there was nothing there to hold them in place.”
It is, however, beginning to heal over. There is a flush of new forb growth that is just beginning, and many of the woody plants have started to resprout.
“I’m extremely concerned about how this fire affected my wildlife,” Curry told listeners. “I’m concerned about my quail population, my fawn crop, and how it will impact antler growth. There are a lot of unknowns right now.”
Curry prides himself particularly on his good quail population. He attributes his success to some of the management practices like pitting, for example, that he’s implemented over the years.
“I think we have some of the best quail hunting in West Texas, and I credit these pits for a lot of that. When water runs across the country it settles in the bottom of these pits. I think it benefits not only our quail but our deer as well.”
Ruben Cantu told listeners that the wildlife habitat here has definitely been impacted. Quail nesting habitat is one of his greatest concerns, at least for the short term.
“Quail like to nest in last year’s grass growth,” Cantu reminded. “With the exception of a few remnants, we don’t have any of that.”
Extension wildlife specialist Dale Rollins told listeners that quail are rarely killed by a fire. Most, he said, will fly up over the fire and get out of danger’s way.
Rollins noted the importance of monitoring the quail population, particularly during this next quail season. Rollins and a team of his associates are in the process of initiating some research projects, both on the West Texas fire and the fires in the Panhandle, to determine bobwhite responses following the fire.
“One of the questions we will be trying to answer is how long it takes for quail to repopulate the interiors of these big fires.”
Because the burned area is quite extensive, Cantu told listeners that a lot of wildlife will disperse to other areas in the near term.
The deer, for example, he said, will either move forward or they’ll move off to the flanks or they’ll get in behind the burned area.
“It might take awhile for the population of deer to rebuild here. They didn’t all perish in the fire, they’ve just moved to other places.”
He reminded that the new forbs and new woody regrowth provide an excellent food source for deer and other wildlife species.
“They’ll move back in and stay when these plants start coming back,” he assured listeners.
Extension range specialist Alan McGinty talked some about the impacts of the fire on the plant population.
“An unplanned fire obviously can give you some problem, but it also offers some opportunities,” he told listeners.
A fire, even as hot as this fire, McGinty said, rarely kills many woody plants. It probably killed less than five percent of the mesquite, and the real negative of it is that the mesquite will be tougher to kill now.
“When these mesquites begin resprouting, they’ll have more stems,” McGinty pointed out, “and multi-stemmed mesquite is harder to kill with herbicides.”
He reiterated a point made earlier in that the fire is going to make for some good browse for wildlife for a good length of time.
Unlike the mesquite, the fire had a devastating impact on prickly pear. It didn’t kill the plants, but McGinty speculated that pear canopy cover was likely reduced by about 60 to 70 percent.
If it’s a goal to reduce the pear population, McGinty recommended following the fire with a herbicide treatment. The age-old standard is Tordon 22K.
“Because it was such a hot fire, we can cut the rate by at least half,” he told listeners.
The herbicide may be applied generally over a five-month period following a burn, but he recommended waiting until the new pads get about the size of the end of a thumb.
He told listeners that this particular herbicide is most effective when it can be moved into the soil.
“If it quits raining, it’s not a good time to use this herbicide, because it breaks down in sunlight. We like for a little rain to follow the application so that the herbicide can be moved into the soil.”
He mentioned two other herbicides for pear control. The first, Surmount, is a newer herbicide that is a little cheaper per gallon than the standard Tordon 22K. However, McGinty told listeners that he couldn’t really recommend it at this time.
“We haven’t had enough experience using it on damaged pear to really know what’s going to happen. We have the plots out now and we will have those answers in another year or two, but right now I would stick with Tordon 22K,” he told listeners.
A positive for Surmount, McGinty said, is that it may be a little more wildlife friendly in that the residual from this herbicide doesn’t last as long because it works through the pads and not the soil.
“We need to get the data to back that up, though.”
For those who may not have a pesticide applicator’s license, McGinty reminded listeners that they can use Vista, a non-restricted use herbicide. He recommended applying it only by hand.
Is Slow, But It Is Happening
By Colleen Schreiber
WATER VALLEY – A January 1 wildfire that stretched 18 miles long and swept over 39,892 acres of Sterling County and a small portion of Tom Green County over about a 10-hour period has had a negative impact on wildlife populations here. Ranchers have also lost at least one grazing season, for the most part. They are hoping the negative impacts will be short-lived.
That was the gist of what several speakers had to say during a recent wildlife/livestock field day that focused on maximizing profit while minimizing conflict, a field day sponsored by Texas Wildlife Association and Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association. Participants had the opportunity to view part of the burned area on the Clark Ranch just northwest of Water Valley.
The first day of the new year brought with it unseasonably warm temperatures in the mid-80 degree range, seven percent humidity and 20 to 40 mile per hour winds out of the west. The area had been extremely dry through the winter months, but good rains had fallen through the previous spring and summer, so there was an abundance of dry forage. All of these things together made for prime wildfire conditions.
A substantial portion of Alan Curry’s family ranch, the Clark Ranch, was burned and some 18 miles of fence. Fortunately, no livestock perished in the fire.
“It was a very scary situation,” Alan Curry commented. “It was burning so fast and so hot that we basically just got the heck away. There was little we could do. The low humidity really hurt us.”
There was concern that the fire was headed to the little community of Water Valley, so firefighters used heavy equipment to put in fireguards and then began setting backfires from there.
Volunteer firefighters from several surrounding counties had their hands full, as on that same day another fire was burning just west of Water Valley on some of the Suggs and Rocker B country in Reagan and Irion counties. All told, 40,000 acres were scorched in the other wildfire.
Curry says the hardest loss for him was the loss of grazing.
“We try to take good care of these ranches. Now we don’t even have the opportunity to make some money off the ranch from the livestock. That’s out the window for now.
“We shipped several loads of cattle to another ranch west of Sterling City, and we took some more to a pasture across the highway,” Curry told listeners.
“We’re lucky in that we didn’t have to sell anything and we didn’t have to find a pasture to lease. Lot of the guys in the Panhandle, I’m hearing, had to go to Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Kansas to find grass.”
Though he didn’t lose any livestock, a cousin who has 16 sections west of him lost 50 or so ewes and five cows.
“I was able to find the majority of my cattle that next day. All of our sheep hung out down on the river.
“We did find a few dead deer, mostly in the corners.”
Curry said he won’t replace all of the 18 miles of fence he lost, at least not all right now. He will start first on his perimeter fences and later rebuild some crossfences.
He talked about a light at the end of the tunnel in that there is some cost-share money available through the USDA/NRCS EQIP program. It will be a 50-50 deal up to $1.30 per foot.
They are offering assistance to landowners affected in the West Texas fires as well as those in the Panhandle, where some half a million acres burned.
NRCS is also offering another $5 per acre for those willing to defer their pastures for an entire growing season, basically April through November.
“That’s like rain from the heavens,” Curry told listeners.
Texas Parks and Wildlife biologist Ruben Cantu pointed out that this might be a good time for ranchers to reevaluate their fencing configurations.
“A lot of these old interior fences may have been functional when these were great big old ranches,” he noted, “but many of these ranches have been cut up since then. Now will be a good time for them to see how they might want to change their fences to better utilize the terrain and better utilize country for the kind of animals that they’re stocking on their properties.”
The section pasture where the field tour stopped had about 40 percent of the brush canopy removed in 330-foot strips three or four years ago. Curry, who manages his family’s operation, believes in taking care of the country through proper deferment and proper stocking.
“We might defer some of our country for a year at a time,” he told listeners, “particularly if we’ve done brush control work. We watch our key grasses. When we return to a pasture depends, too, on the class of livestock we intend to stock.”
That particular pasture, Curry said, had been stocked with some dry ewes prior to the burn, so it wasn’t being used all that heavily.
Since the burn, Curry’s country has received about 3.75 inches of rain.
“We had a two-inch rain when there was nothing on the ground. Soot was running everywhere. We washed out fences with that two-inch rain because there was nothing there to hold them in place.”
It is, however, beginning to heal over. There is a flush of new forb growth that is just beginning, and many of the woody plants have started to resprout.
“I’m extremely concerned about how this fire affected my wildlife,” Curry told listeners. “I’m concerned about my quail population, my fawn crop, and how it will impact antler growth. There are a lot of unknowns right now.”
Curry prides himself particularly on his good quail population. He attributes his success to some of the management practices like pitting, for example, that he’s implemented over the years.
“I think we have some of the best quail hunting in West Texas, and I credit these pits for a lot of that. When water runs across the country it settles in the bottom of these pits. I think it benefits not only our quail but our deer as well.”
Ruben Cantu told listeners that the wildlife habitat here has definitely been impacted. Quail nesting habitat is one of his greatest concerns, at least for the short term.
“Quail like to nest in last year’s grass growth,” Cantu reminded. “With the exception of a few remnants, we don’t have any of that.”
Extension wildlife specialist Dale Rollins told listeners that quail are rarely killed by a fire. Most, he said, will fly up over the fire and get out of danger’s way.
Rollins noted the importance of monitoring the quail population, particularly during this next quail season. Rollins and a team of his associates are in the process of initiating some research projects, both on the West Texas fire and the fires in the Panhandle, to determine bobwhite responses following the fire.
“One of the questions we will be trying to answer is how long it takes for quail to repopulate the interiors of these big fires.”
Because the burned area is quite extensive, Cantu told listeners that a lot of wildlife will disperse to other areas in the near term.
The deer, for example, he said, will either move forward or they’ll move off to the flanks or they’ll get in behind the burned area.
“It might take awhile for the population of deer to rebuild here. They didn’t all perish in the fire, they’ve just moved to other places.”
He reminded that the new forbs and new woody regrowth provide an excellent food source for deer and other wildlife species.
“They’ll move back in and stay when these plants start coming back,” he assured listeners.
Extension range specialist Alan McGinty talked some about the impacts of the fire on the plant population.
“An unplanned fire obviously can give you some problem, but it also offers some opportunities,” he told listeners.
A fire, even as hot as this fire, McGinty said, rarely kills many woody plants. It probably killed less than five percent of the mesquite, and the real negative of it is that the mesquite will be tougher to kill now.
“When these mesquites begin resprouting, they’ll have more stems,” McGinty pointed out, “and multi-stemmed mesquite is harder to kill with herbicides.”
He reiterated a point made earlier in that the fire is going to make for some good browse for wildlife for a good length of time.
Unlike the mesquite, the fire had a devastating impact on prickly pear. It didn’t kill the plants, but McGinty speculated that pear canopy cover was likely reduced by about 60 to 70 percent.
If it’s a goal to reduce the pear population, McGinty recommended following the fire with a herbicide treatment. The age-old standard is Tordon 22K.
“Because it was such a hot fire, we can cut the rate by at least half,” he told listeners.
The herbicide may be applied generally over a five-month period following a burn, but he recommended waiting until the new pads get about the size of the end of a thumb.
He told listeners that this particular herbicide is most effective when it can be moved into the soil.
“If it quits raining, it’s not a good time to use this herbicide, because it breaks down in sunlight. We like for a little rain to follow the application so that the herbicide can be moved into the soil.”
He mentioned two other herbicides for pear control. The first, Surmount, is a newer herbicide that is a little cheaper per gallon than the standard Tordon 22K. However, McGinty told listeners that he couldn’t really recommend it at this time.
“We haven’t had enough experience using it on damaged pear to really know what’s going to happen. We have the plots out now and we will have those answers in another year or two, but right now I would stick with Tordon 22K,” he told listeners.
A positive for Surmount, McGinty said, is that it may be a little more wildlife friendly in that the residual from this herbicide doesn’t last as long because it works through the pads and not the soil.
“We need to get the data to back that up, though.”
For those who may not have a pesticide applicator’s license, McGinty reminded listeners that they can use Vista, a non-restricted use herbicide. He recommended applying it only by hand.