BYU NewsNet - When Ranchers Saw the Smoke, They Knew it Was Bad

By Brandon Dabling

Last year on July 6, Pete Yardley was working on his ranch in Beaver when he saw the smoke coming over the mountains from Milford. He and the other local ranchers had seen fires like this before, and they knew they didn't have much time before the fire made its way over the mountain and into their pastures. They needed to move their cattle, and they needed to move them quickly.

"We saw that smoke coming over the mountain," Yardley said. "We knew it was going to be bad."

Hovering over the mountain with the smoke, Yardley saw a helicopter. He later found out it wasn't putting out the fire in Milford, but was only stopping on its way to the fires in Washington County. It was a state helicopter, and it didn't have the authority to put out this fire. Otherwise, he now believes, it could have limited a lot of the fire's damage, if not have stopped it all together in its early stages.

Yardley and the other ranchers were in the midst of rotating their cattle away from the fire and to the next pasture that day when the fire first crossed over to the Beaver side of the mountains. They moved 1,100 cattle from the south end into the northern highlands where the fire wouldn't be able to burn, or at least burn as easily.

Fires, like most things, don't move as quickly up mountains, or through thick green grass, Yardley said.

On the morning of the fire's second day, Yardley led his cattle down a dusty road to the northern part of the ranch. He and the other ranchers were just then finishing moving the cows, but the fire had all ready caught up with them. Going down the road, the ranchers confronted 10-mile-per-hour fires coming at them from the north and the south. By 9 a.m. they had finished moving the cattle into the northern pasture. By noon, the fire had completely burned the south end.

As the fire ravaged its way through the southern pasture, it appeared the ranchers' morning effort might have been in vain. Still coming from both sides, the fire pinched the newly located cattle into their new home, threatening to consume them too.

The ranchers' understanding of the land and experience with fires paid off. The fire stopped in the highlands at the road down which Yardley had led his cattle only a few hours ago. On the other side, the fire stopped only 50 yards to .5 miles short of the new pasture's fence line.

Yardley and other local ranchers Floyd Yardley and Clark Bradshaw lost 160 cattle that day, but every rancher escaped unharmed.

Combing through the ranches in the following weeks was a cold reminder of the fire's devastation. Debris-filled ponds, washed out roads and burned cattle were all tokens of what had passed through.

In the weeks following the fire, Beaver County Commissioner Chad Johnson, went through the burned out areas with Yardley.

"You've seen pictures of the moon?" Johnson said. "That's exactly what this looked like."

The government offered an $11 compensation for each cow lost in the fire. Each loss, however, had to be documented by the cow's identifying tag. In the weeks after the fire, Yardley and Johnson made their way through the carcasses to find the individual tags, but often came out empty-handed. In many cases, the tag had melted. In others, they had to dig through the remaining flesh. Johnson helped Yardley do this from a healthy distance - a distance at which the rotting animals' horrendous smell was slightly less potent.

In the end, the small compensation could not make up for the losses of that second day: 160 cattle, 50-60 more that were severely burned, more than $150,000 in water source repairs and land which wouldn't be usable for another two years.