One year ago today, July 22nd 2023, the Rossmore Lake Wildfire approached our property and ended up sweeping through almost 800 acres of our private land, including hay fields, pasture and timber.
As ranchers, every day we run into challenges where we must problem solve. We must have a wide variety of skills in livestock care, crops, grazing management, mechanics, physical labour, management and many others. Add in a wildfire and we are then having to manage all of our ranch tasks along with the stress of a raging forest fire causing havoc over our land. We are resilient. Our daily livelihood makes us resilient. We must use our problem solving skills to plan and manage our ranch during the wildfire and will have to continue this planning and managing after the fire in order to rebuild. The tasks seems daunting but we will preserve!
After watching what has happened during the Ross Moore Lake Fire, I think as ranchers, we need to be as proactive as possible to help protect our land and livelihood. There are many aspects of these more frequent, raging, out of control wildfires, that we can not manage. But as ranchers and land managers, I believe there are some things that we can do to help prepare ourselves and our land.
Reducing Fuel Loads
First, we need to be proactively logging our private land and reducing the fuel loads. We have always selectively logged our private land. In areas where we have selectively harvested, we were better able to slow the fire down, with help from BC Wildfire Service. When we log, we need to deal with our slash piles immediately so that they aren’t a build up of fuel waiting to burn. Selectively logging also has important benefits for increase in grazing.
Fire Breaks
Second, if possible, have some fire breaks in your property. For example, when putting in a fence line, make the right-of-way a bit bigger to give you a larger break in the timber. This will also be helpful in protecting your fence lines. We found that areas where there were larger breaks in trees next to fence lines, there was less impact to the fence line itself, as the fire may not have been as hot in that location.
Fire Fighting Equipment
Third, ensure that you have some fire fighting gear ready and fire suppression training. On years like last year, BC Wildfire Service is so busy with so many fires, that they can’t possibly keep on top of all the hot spots. For us, we found that trying to put out hot spots throughout our entire property didn’t make sense and wasn’t safe. You are better to focus on the perimeters, particularly near grasslands, open areas, any guards that have been built and areas closest to your structures. It can feel daunting, but if you focus on these areas, you have a better opportunity for success. Yes, you are going to loose grass, timber, fencing to these large out-of-control fires. You can’t stop a ranging forest fire, in the heat of the summer, through heavily timbered areas. So focusing on the priority areas is most important.
Plan Ahead
Fourth, prior to fire season, sit down with your family/employees and have a plan of where you would take your animals, who would care for what and how you would execute your plan. None of us can predict where the fire will occur, but you can have a couple plans in place so that you aren’t caught off guard when the fire starts. There is enough stress and anxiety when the fire starts, you don’t need to be trying to plan everything. By having a discussion prior, it takes a bit of the pressure off so that you can just implement and start moving animals. You won’t necessarily follow your entire plan, but it will help to guide you when making decisions.
Open Communication
Fifth, keep in communication with your community, your rancher liaison your regional district and BC Wildfire Service. Our community has a community fire page, which was kept organized and coordinated by a community volunteer with experience in emergency management. She would filter comments, inquires and try to keep posts to relevant and accurate information. This really helped to have a resource to stay up to date on exact community fire information. The rancher liaison is useful for staying informed and in touch in the BC Wildfire Service. When you are making decisions to evacuate animals, make sure to touch base with your regional district first to let them know. They can also assist with getting permits for moving livestock around. We found it was also useful to keep a record of contact names of BC Wildfire Service employees as we would meet them on our land.
Get Rest
Six, ensure that you do take some rest. It is a very stressful time and sometimes you feel like you have to keep going, 24 hours per day. But you make a lot better decisions and use better judgement when you are rested. So try to get some sleep when the fire is quiet. During the first few days, it felt like this was only from 2am to 5am, but as the fire progressed, we were able to get a bit more rest during the night.
It’s a Matter of When
Times are changing and it seems like it is not a matter of if a rancher in the Interior of BC will be impacted by a forest fire, it is more of a matter of when. As ranchers, I think we all need to consider wildfire management in our management of our ranch so that we can be better prepared. We can’t truly ever be 100% “prepared” for a forest fire, but we can do some planning to help mitigate the impacts from forest fires to be best of our ability.
