• If you are having problems logging in please use the Contact Us in the lower right hand corner of the forum page for assistance.

Looks like the whole world is on fire!!

Help Support Ranchers.net:

L

Liberty Belle

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 10, 2005
Messages
1,818
Reaction score
4
Location
northwestern South Dakota
I'm sitting at the computer while I'm monitoring the fire radio and the telephone for our fire fighters. Every available able bodied person who isn't operating a fire radio is out with the fire trucks fighting fires that you can see in every direction.

So far I've counted 17 different ranches that have fires and several of them have more than one fire burning. One of the biggest is threatening the ranch buildings and the wind is blowing a gale out of the east right now. There are also several forest fires in really rough country in the national forest just south of us that the BLM and Forest Service trucks are helping to fight.

No one within a radius of a hundred miles is going to get any sleep tonight and the fire chief is calling for GPS coordinates so he can guide the slurry bombers in as soon as it gets light.

The temperature reached 106 degrees here today and a dry lightening storm rolled through just after dark, setting fire with every strike. The half moon rose blood red through the smoke and there is still lightening striking occasionally, usually just before we get another fire called in on the radio.

This is going to be a really long night and a really long summer.
 
Yes it is going to be a tough late summer and fall, with all these fires everywhere. I got my weed sprayer, 200 G, filled and started (test) yesterday. It seems the whole west is on fire. I finally got my hay picked up and stacked in the stack yards, so it is now insured. We've only had one local small fire that was put out very fast. Hope everyone here gets a much needed, no lightening drizzle
 
Well be careful Liberty,you have a lot of folks praying for you and your fire fighters,that damn fire is nothing to take lightly especially with wind like that.............good luck
PS keep us updated
 
Liberty Belle, this deal turned out to be not as bad as it looked to be last nite. That is with the possible exception of the flare ups over in the Buttes. I hear them visiting about those right now on the radio. We stood our ground here till the storm passed, and we were on the south edge of the storm by a few miles. Didn't get more than a few drops here. I could see the flames from at least half a dozen fires, but the rain put them all out for the most part. If the storm had actually been all dry, we would have been in a bad way. There were hundreds and hundreds of direct hits that I saw. Our truck eventually went thru JB pass and over to the fire by Buck T's. old house, but it was real wet in the grass there, and the trees were all that was burning.

So to make a long story longer, we got in about 2:00am and were moving cattle by 5:30 or so. I better get a nap before there is more activity. We are lucky this time so far.
 
These guys finally got to sleep last night. They spent the night at the fire at the Hackamore. They were the only crew to show up to help Doug and Jim because all the other units were tied up elsewhere. Made for a long night and with the clean up and sitting on the fires yesterday, they weren't the jolliest pair you ever seen.

I suppose you've heard the fire at Evans took off again yesterday and so did the one up in the Buttes north of there. I was worried about Charley V. yesterday when the fire torched in the forest above his place and they had to evacuate before it flanked them. He hadn't slept and you could hear the exhaustion and desperation in his voice as they tried to keep the fire from coming down out of the hills to the flat north of his ranch.

A busload of FS fire fighters was trucked in yesterday afternoon so the local guys could finally get some very much needed rest. Toward evening the ambulance from Buffalo had to haul one of them off when he got too much heat and collapsed. Had to carry him out of the rough country to meet the ambulance down on the flat.

The big fire over east of us in Perkins Co. that threatened several buildings has been contained and most of the crews have been released. Not much talk on the fire radio this morning, so hopefully there isn't going to be a lot of excitement today; although that could change really fast if the thunderstorms they were predicting for tonight materialize.

Try to catch a nap. Okay?
 
We got some rain!!! Got thirty six hundredths last night and everyone got a good sleep. EJ called from over along the Missouri River this morning and they got over an inch. This won't put a stop to the fires, but it will give us some breathing room. Hope everyone got at least a little shower.
 

Latest posts

Top